Fruits Basket

Amongst the Sakuras

Chapter 3

Tohru's first day at her new university was, to put it lightly, awful.

While trying to look for her new apartment building with Uo and Hana, they came across a group of gang members looking to jump Uo (not surprisingly anyway). Hana scared them off with her poison electric waves, as usual.

Well, they finally found it, but while climbing the stairs, Tohru dropped her bags down to the bottom level, and had to go down and get them before the downstairs neighbor accidentally drove over it with his car.

After dropping off all of her stuff, Uo wanted to give her a ride to her classes, but since the campus was only a couple blocks away, Tohru said that she would walk. Uo protectively begged her to let her drive her there, but Tohru insisted. So, with a hug from both of them, Uo and Hana left her at her apartment while Tohru gathered her books and bags to go to her new school.

At the campus, things didn't go so well either.

She got lost trying to find her first class, biology, and somehow wound up at the baseball field. A player that was practicing had to give her directions to where the science building was. She apologized frantically and was off.

Tohru had almost gotten there when a car sped by right in front of her (because she forgot to look if there were any cars coming), causing her to fall on her butt, spilling all the books she had brought with her, some people stepping on them by accident. She begged them not to step on her stuff, but when she saw her notebook that had her mom's picture in it, she immediately snatched it up before someone almost stepped on it. Tohru just waited for everyone to pass before picking up her things and walking to class.

Because of all that had happened, she ended up being late to class, but the teacher didn't really seem to care. He was just droning on about the molecules. So, she sat there for about 5 hours taking notes on everything he said, though they weren't very good notes really. When they all finally got out of class, she was so dead tired she barely had the energy to walk home.

Tohru was so out of it that she almost collapsed in the middle of the road with (another) car speeding by. As she was falling, the car getting closer and closer, she suddenly felt an arm grab and jerk her away from the street and onto the sidewalk where she fell onto something. As she heard the car drive past, as well as the murmuring of the other students, she opened her eyes and found what she had fallen on.

She immediately jumped off and apologized repeatedly to a young man of about 22, with blonde hair and gray-green eyes, who was sitting on the ground. He stood up, brushed himself off, and walked over to Tohru, who was beet red and bowing frantically. As all the other students were crossing the street, obviously not interested in the couple anymore, he asked calmly to the girl, "Are you all right?"

Still red, she answered, "Y...yes, I'm fine. Thank you for saving me."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I'm just glad you weren't hurt."

She looked up at him and smiled her innocent smile. Somehow, this boy looked familiar.

"Oh! I know where I've seen you!"

He was taken aback by the sudden statement she shouted, and stepped back a little.

"You were the one who helped me at the baseball field, weren't you?"

"Oh...yeah. You were that girl who was trying to find the science building, right?"

"Hai!"

He chuckled a bit and held out a hand.

"My name is Cody Robinson."

Tohru shook his hand.

"I'm Tohru Honda."

The light turned, so they both crossed the street together.

"You're American, are you not?"

"Yeah, I am. I just transferred to this school on a scholarship program not too long ago. I'm still getting used to Japan," he said as he adjusted his shoulder bag.

"Well, your Japanese is very good," Tohru said with a smile.

He smiled back as they reached the other side of the road.

"So, where are you headed?" he asked.

"I'm going back to my apartment to rest. Today was exhausting...."

"Oh, ok then. See you around school."

"Okay, bai bai," she said as she waved to Cody. He walked off in the opposite direction as she headed towards her apartment.

She locked the door behind her and dropped her things on the floor. Tohru tiredly walked over to her bed and fell face first, burying her face in her pillow. She looked over to the side of the bed and picked up the framed pictured of her mom that she kept with her since she first left her grandfather's house.

"Okaa-san.... I wonder how the others are doing without me..."

With that thought, she fell asleep.

A/N:

Hehehe, my writer's block is finally gone. YAY!!! But the bad news is, I won't b able to upload any new chapters next week since I'll b at my mom's house and she doesn't have the internet. T T oh well. Thanx for waiting so long, all of u who r following my story. I hope u liked this chapter, and the next one too! (when I get it uploaded that is. Hahaha)