Disclaimer: Fruit Basket isn't mine.
Enjoy.
Neutrality
- Hope was neutral. Should you misuse it, it will punish you, until you end up begging, pleading for help.
And even then, at the point of no return, hope will abandon you – leave you alone on the streets, leave you forever.
Tomoeda High School was a school just like the others; a person's popularity status will determine the position and ranking. If you were fortunate enough to be spotted by the 'higher' rankings, then you were instantly a 'hit'. Unfortunate? Some claim that the unfortunate were the ones that were ignored by the higher rankings, and had their own little group of other 'unfortunates'.
That was not true. Not true in any sense.
The most unfortunate were the ones who clung onto the higher rankers like glue, but were ignored by them thoroughly. In the end, they were shunned by the higher. Those are the most unfortunate.
Tohru Honda was an unfortunate. Not that she minded.
Tohru Honda came into Tomoeda High School at the beginning – along with many others. She was placed in the top class, along with twenty nine other students.
That alone made her shunned by society within her school already.
She was the quiet, unwillingly to speak student in her class, and the 'higher' rankers did not approve of that. They claimed that anyone in the top class was intelligent, thus, in their eyes, 'un-cool'. They did have certain regulations, in which, if the person was in top class, but also out going and social, they would be considered still slightly 'cool'.
On Tohru's first day, she walked into the classroom without a single friend.
She watched silently as they played a game of 'getting to know you'. When it came to her turn to say something about herself, Tohru Honda murmured a response, and left it at that.
She looked around the classroom. A girl that placed herself right next to Tohru was named Hanajima Saki. She had purple, grey hair which flower over her shoulders exquisitely. Her bag was a designer brand, DKNY. Tohru half expected her to sit with some else in a matter of minutes.
Then there was a group of boys in the corner, who appeared to be the 'cool' ones in the class. Dyed hair, streaks, a certain look on their faces…
And then another group of girls, the 'ohmigosh my make up just got smudged!' type. Tohru smiled slightly at the silliness of it all.
Tohru's eyes reverted to the second and the last group of boys in the classroom. They appeared to be the more humorous type than the poser boys in the corner, and seemed much more interested in playing a game of handball than to look pretty. For some reason, Tohru found the class rather interesting to analyse.
There was the second lot of girls, and they were, what Tohru can safely name as the more 'normal' type, not that there was such a thing as normal in the world.
And then there was Tohru.
Sitting next to Hanajima Saki, who was smiling at her.
It was a little unnerving, was it not?
…
Tohru survived the 'getting to know you' game.
That was her first accomplishment of the day. Her second accomplishment was…
"I thought you might have been psychic." She mumbled to Saki, who was smiling rather nervously to Tohru as well.
Tohru didn't exactly dislike Saki, but she felt as though Saki Hanajima was trying to see past her shell. Tohru wasn't exactly overwhelmed with that. The more she tried to distance herself, the more Saki would break through. Her walls were collapsing, and the back up defence was being infiltrated by a virus.
There was no escape.
Tohru decided, since she couldn't escape, than the second safest place to be, was to be in the most dangerous situation – thus, Tohru would break down Saki's walls.
Tohru smiled. Her walls were not easy to break down, and only a true psychic will successfully break through. They were made of cold, harsh stone.
…
There was a reason why on the outside, she appeared to be a normal teenager, air headed and a klutz; but inside, she was a girl that was always collapsing, and did not have the strength to pick herself back up.
When she was nine, her mother died in a car crash.
All Tohru remembered, was she did not hug her mother that morning.
One minute, her mother was patting her on the head, and the next, the phone rang.
Tohru remembered her heart pounding at a thousand miles an hour, as the voice on the phone stammered something, and Tohru caught hold of the words, your mother is injured.
Her heart stopped.
Your mother is injured. The words echoed in her heart, and the phone dropped from her hand. She dimly remembered herself opening the door, and rushing out. The piercing sunlight shined into her pale blue eyes, and she saw, with a tranquilizing pain in her chest, a hundred metres from her front door…was her mother, twisted in an abnormal position, and a yellow Mazda twenty metres away from it.
The Mazda was trashed – it was burning. And twenty metres to its left was the twisted, disorientated figure of her mother.
Blood…blood everywhere, Tohru remembered, as she ran towards the scene.
Her heart was pounding, and somehow, the tears just could not come. She felt them welling up inside her eyes, but they just would not come. Tohru remembered looking into her mother's cold eyes, which existed in its own timeframe – a penetrated, paralysed look of fear trapped within her eyes.
When the tears finally came, Tohru placed her head next to Kyoko, her mother's head, and she laid there on the ground.
Their time together was so short.
Distantly, she could hear the ambulance's siren coming closer and closer, and soon, the stretchers were out, and Kyoko's cold body was laid upon it.
But Tohru knew it was always too late. Her mother has always told her, everyone was born to die, but it was the way they lived that marked a person's success.
Kyoko had told Tohru that she had reached her success by having her as a daughter. Tohru took the compliment quite happily at that time.
But now she understood the true meaning.
…
After that event, Tohru had to decide which one of her relatives she had to live with. Tohru was considered as a useless being, the daughter of Kyoko, a rebel – the Red Butterfly. Tohru was thought to be as useless as her mother was, and as disobedient as Kyoko was. Tohru had always thought of her mother was one that sought her freedom more openly.
She rejected all offers from her relatives to take her in. Tohru knew they despised her mother, and despised Tohru.
Instead, she chose to live with her grandfather, who loved Kyoko to death.
So here Tohru was, standing in the hallway of the local high school, trying to break through Hanajima Saki's walls.
She sighed, and decided to might take the first step, "Hanajima Saki…Hanajima…can I call you Hana instead?"
Hanajima Saki looked at Tohru with a momentary of surprise, and she paused in her steps. Saki looked at Tohru, and she smiled, "Yes you can."
Tohru smiled brightly, "Hana it is!" and she ended up dragging Hana around the school, exploring with her.
But Hana – Hanajima Saki – was not blind. She could hear a soft voice inside Tohru's heart, weeping.
…
It was English, and the teacher now requested to place the class into a seating plan. Randomly picked by the teacher, to Tohru's dismay.
She ended up sitting next to an orange headed boy named Kyou Sohma, who seemed to hold quite a temper (i.e. holding his fist out all the time and acting like a fool).
Tohru sighed. She would much rather sit next to Hana than anyone with a temper like the Sohma next to her. Kyou Sohma was infamous for his usual fights at the school, which usually start because the Sohma was unwillingly to cooperate with others.
The desks were in sets of too – Hana sat a row in front of Tohru, and next to Kyou Sohma was a Yankee by the name of Uotani Arisa.
The Yankee was known to be just as aggressive as Kyou Sohma could be, and at times, even severely into cases where the victim was bashed head first into the pole.
Two places after the Yankee, was Kisa Sohma. Tohru didn't mind her all that much, as Kisa Sohma, at least, on the surface, seemed quiet enough. She had a steady nature, and was almost too unlike the Yankee, whom she had exchanged a few words to.
In the first row, directly in front of Hana, was Kana Sohma. Not unlike Kisa, she was calm and unusually sensible. Almost too sensible for a teenager. Tohru had yet to speak to Kisa directly, so she knew she could not be judgemental.
Even though Tohru didn't know, those people greatly affected the outcome of her years at high school.
…
Tohru glanced uncertainly at her piece of English work, and slyly, she looked across at the Sohma's work. She sighed as she found out she couldn't read it…the Sohma's handwriting as almost illegible. She could spot an 'I' and an 'e' at certain places in the work, but apart from that…
"Just give it back in five minutes, okay?" Tohru heard as she found the book shoved across the desk.
She looked up to find the Sohma, his mouth in a thin line, looking away. Tohru smiled, and she said softly, "Thanks."
The Sohma didn't reply, but Tohru could see he was not exactly pleased – he knew she couldn't read it because of his handwriting.
Tohru smiled happily as she deciphered the Sohma code.
Maybe, just maybe, this year was not going to be as bad as she anticipated.
"Are you done with it yet?" Sohma Kyou said rather hurriedly.
Tohru hesitantly looked back at his book, and she smiled again, "Yes I'm finished. Thank you very much."
Truth was, Tohru wasn't sure why, but something about Kyou Sohma drew Tohru inwards – she was curious to know more. It was her one weakness, curiosity.
Ever since she was a little child, her mother often told Tohru, "Just be yourself Tohru, you don't need to strain yourself that hard."
Tohru would reply, "Gomen ne, Okaa-san." I'm sorry, mother.
"Don't be, Tohru. Life just isn't worth it without you."
Life was worth it without you either, mum. You left me here to suffer…
After she was taken in by her grandfather, money got tighter, as Tohru's grandfather was already living off his superannuation funds. Add in Tohru, and the money was being dissolved in a disgusting rate. Tohru despised herself for being a burden on her grandfather, so she told him she would get a job, and as soon as she could, she would move out.
That was all an idea based on a thin strand of hope. But what was hope?
Was hope for the better of mankind or for the worse?
Hope caused people to live – to enjoy their life to the full, thinking of the best situations, making the most of their short-lived or long life. Hope caused people to have thoughts on the future, to have a wish to live on. Hope let a person survive in a world where everything came at a dear price. Hope was vitality in each person's life. Without hope, a person will wither away, their petals slowly disintegrating into dust.
But with hope, came the false, the semi existence…the unknown reality that hope has on its other side. A small part of hope came along with false hope, accusations, and lies. Hope lets people live their life to the full, but when their wishes and dreams are shattered, it leaves a person crying, weeping for a better beginning, for another life.
Hope was neutral. Should you misuse it, it will punish you, until you end up begging, pleading for help.
And even then, at the point of no return, hope will abandon you – leave you alone on the streets, leave you forever.
Ultimately…Hope was not to be trusted.
Tohru had many situations where she knew hope was impossible – hope should not be possessed; when her mother was in the hospital, when her father got sick…when she saw the yellow Mazda, deformed on the sidewalk…
And yet, Tohru could not help it, but just to have a small flicker of hope…because…what else can a person do, but hope?
Tohru will always have hope, not because it was a vital point for her to survive, but because, she was human.
And even thought all mankind knows it, humanity makes the simplest of all mistakes, and continues creating them, knowing there were wrong, but refusing to correct themselves.
Just hope – it makes them human.
End of Chapter One
Based upon a true story. I dedicated this story to all my friends that supported me with this story and helped out with the character positions. I had slight trouble defining the character profiles – and two of my really, really, REALLY good friends, Monica and Rebecca – yes, this story was inspired and now is dedicated to them the most – helped me out A LOT! And also, thanks to my very cool editor! She has a hard time, seeing I make frequent mistakes (nods).
Reviews and constructive criticism appreciated.