Chapter 2: A Shocking Discovery

Tai Sohma rummaged through a tall chest of drawers, being as quiet as he could, so he would not awaken his mother, who could be very grumpy when unnaturally woken up. Also, his mother had forbidden him to go into her office, and she would be very upset with him if she found out that he had taken a peek inside.

He was usually very obedient of his mother, because she was much bigger than him, and had one heck of a temper. Not that she was abusive; she loved Tai very much, but she just had that kind of a personality. He had disobeyed her this time simply because he needed information.

Tai's sixth grade teacher, Mrs. M (for some reason, she never told the students her full name) had assigned the class to write short autobiographies, starting from when they were young babies, to the present. She had asked the students to include the information on their birth certificates, and also to interview their parents about when they were little kids. However, when Tai had tried to interview his parents about his birth and childhood, they hadn't been very open. They hadn't shown him his birth certificate, told him anything about what it was like when he was born, or what hospital. They even seemed almost… secretive.

He had tried again and again to get the information from his parents, but still they would not tell him. So, he decided that he would find it himself.

Actually, he wasn't quite sure that the information would be in his mother's office, but he hadn't a clue where else it would be, so he decided to check there first. Most of the drawers that he had searched through had been full of magazine articles and newspaper clippings that his mother had written- he had made the assumption that his mother usually used her office to work on her journalism projects. But then, he found something- a box of pictures. He opened it up, hoping to find a picture of him when he was little, or maybe of his parents' wedding. But instead he found pictures of his mother, when she was in high school.

Mostly, they were of her looking very happy, with two other girls- a gothic looking girl and a short girl with brown hair. Also in the drawer was his mother's high school yearbook. He flipped through it, and in the back found the pages with room for signatures. There weren't many, but there were two that stood out.

"I wish you good electric waves this summer," –Hana, and "Thank you so much for being my friend! I'm so sorry for any trouble I may have caused you!"

Tohru. Tai laughed a little. This Tohru was certainly an eccentric person. He flipped back to the pictures of the students. He immediately found 'Saki Hanajima', the gothic girl. Unlike many of the other students, she did not have a fake smile. She looked very serious, with a blank expression on her face. It was one of those pictures where you move around, but the eyes still look like they're staring right at you. He felt a little chill and quickly flipped back to the previous page, hoping to find this 'Tohru'. Sure enough, he saw a happy, smiling 'Tohru Honda' on the page. Her picture stuck out, because it was easy to tell that her smile was real, unlike the others. Wait… that smile reminded him of someone… but he couldn't quite put his finger on who it was. He then put the yearbook back in the drawer, in the same place that it had been before, so that his mother would not suspect that he had been there.

Finally, he found a small, black folder. He gingerly held it, and carefully opened it, not wanting it to rip it or get fingerprints on it; that would be a dead giveaway that he had been looking in the drawer. But inside, to his perfect content, he found a small, off-white piece of paper, which he identified as a birth certificate. He took it out of the folder and surveyed it. It read as follows:

Name: Sohma, Tai

Date of Birth: May 13, 2005

Mother: Honda, Tohru

Father:

Weight: 7lbs, 4oz

Length: 20 ½ inches

Tai gaped. Tohru Honda? Wasn't that the girl that he had just been looking at, a minute ago? How could she be his mother? And there was no mention of a father. Shouldn't it say that his father was Kureno Sohma? After all, the last names matched! It just wouldn't add up! It had to be a mistake. Definitely a mistake. Arisa Uotani was his mother, not this Tohru! But he had a sinking feeling that maybe it wasn't a mistake. It was true that he didn't look like either of his parents very much- he had dark auburn hair, and he was pretty short; both of his parents had blonde hair, and were tall. And he had just figured out who Tohru reminded him of- himself. Tai jumped as he heard footsteps. The door creaked, and his "father" stepped into the room.

"Tai, what are you doing? It's late and you need to go to bed-" But he stopped right in his tracks when he saw what Tai was holding.

"Dad- or…" he remembered what he had just read, "Whoever you are," he said coldly, "explain this to me. Now."