well, here it finally is. chapter three of my own personal 'Cinderella' parody starring the characters of 'Fruits Basket'. in this 'Cinderella' parody, the story is a lot more accurately cast than they were in the 'Cinderella-ish' play from Kaibara High's culture festival from the lead characters' second year of high school. honestly speaking, I hated that play so much, I could puke my guts out one gut at a time. and that's actually one of the nicer ways to describe what I thought of that play, it was so horrendously miscast. but enough banter about that. I'd really like to get to the headnote in this chapter. this one chapter is worth a total of two-thousand-three-hundred-twenty-two words of storyline, and a few words within the one author's note I put into the third chapter. the storyline of this third chapter of my story doesn't include this explanatory headnote with its own monologue from me as a part of it, nor does it include the chapter's (mandatory) headnote which makes up the paragraph following said headnote.
disclamation: I don't own the 'Fruits Basket' anime in any way, shape, or form other than owning the 2019 reboot of the anime on Bluray and DVD. I also don't own the manga except for own copies of the original paperback covers of the series. the anime is owned by both the Funimation and the TV Tokyo Anime Companies. meanwhile, the manga is owned strictly by Natsuki Takaya-sensei.
Not long after the soundtrack played the happier music to which he had wanted to listen, Kyo walked up to Tohru and her evil foster sisters' house in which the six of them had turned the poor sweet girl into their maid.
Kyo Sohma's voiceover: So, here we were; the day of my cousin, Prince Yuki's, ball. I'd managed to swipe some mail from the family messenger's bag so that I'd have an excuse to visit Tohru.
Kyo knocked on the front door of their house and turned around and tried to make his hair look presentable to his beloved Tohru. The door opened and, of course, Kyo's beautiful Tohru was obviously the one who came to the door.
Tohru Honda: Hello? Oh, it's you, Kyo.
Kyo finally turned around to face the girl for whom he constantly, yet still very secretly and unknowingly, pined.
Kyo Sohma: I'm sorry to be such a disappointment.
Tohru suddenly waved her hands up in the air frantically as though she were a hummingbird, assuming that she had hurt Kyo's feelings with her comment. She even held an expression on her face which told her friend that she was worried about him.
Tohru Honda: No, no, no, you're not a disappointment. You could never be a disappointment. It's just that I was kinda sort of expecting the Sohma Family's messenger.
Kyo suddenly reached for something from behind his back. He pulled forth the invitations which he had swiped from his family messenger's bag.
Kyo Sohma: With these?
Tohru just grabbed the invitations from Kyo very excitedly.
Tohru Honda: They're here!
Then, Tohru began to walk back into the house that was rightfully hers ever since her parents had died, but her house had been taken over by her evil foster sisters when they came along. Kyo followed her in, just as he would have done anywhere else.
Kyo Sohma's voiceover: Tohru, of course, had other relatives, but her maternal grandparents had disowned her mother when the young woman had finally had the nerve to quit her biker gang. Meanwhile, Tohru's paternal grandfather was her only grandparent who was close to her, but he was not only retired and living merely on a pension but was also a single man who could just barely take care of his own basic needs, never mind nurture his own granddaughter and her foster sisters. Tohru's paternal aunt and her family were all set to inherit her grandfather's house, but they would not have been very welcoming towards her at all. As a matter of fact, all of the Hondas had been against Katsuya's marriage to Tohru's mother, Kyoko, from the beginning. All of the Hondas, with the exception of Katsuya's father, obviously. Tohru had lived a happy life before with both of her own parents. That was, until her six new foster sisters tricked the unsuspecting couple into adopting all six of them. Then one day, the two of them had both died under mysterious, but still perfectly tragic, circumstances.
Back inside Tohru's house, she asked Kyo about just what his cousin, Prince Yuki, was like, desperate to know whatever she could learn about her dream prince.
Tohru Honda (continued): Did you see him today? What was he wearing?
Kyo just sighed in an annoyed and exasperated tone at Tohru's persistent dreaming of and pining for his cousin, Prince Yuki. She had barely even noticed the orange-haired Sohma's exasperated sigh as she counted the invitations that her friend had so rebelliously delivered to her house in the Sohma Family's messenger's stead.
Tohru Honda (continued): Six of these invitations are most likely for all of my foster sisters, and it looks like not even one of them is for me.
Kyo had always hated seeing Tohru sad about anything, at all. There was actually one more invitation than the six of them that Tohru had held within her hands at the time. The orange-haired Sohma boy had decided to reveal the final seventh invitation to the love of his life.
Kyo Sohma: Wait a minute. What's that?
Kyo then reached for the space from behind his beautiful Tohru's ear.
Kyo Sohma (continued): You got something_
Kyo then pulled out what he was reaching for from behind his beloved Tohru's ear. It was an extra invitation to Prince Yuki Sohma's ball.
Kyo Sohma (continued): Right here.
Tohru excitedly embraced her Sohma friend, Kyo, in a grateful hug.
Tohru Honda: I'm invited, too.
Kyo was so happy about Tohru hugging him, he felt as though he were going to faint. That was the case until she continued talking to him about the Sohma Family's ball.
Tohru Honda (continued): Just like I'd always dreamed about. The Sohma's Ball, and he'll be there, in his shirt…
Kyo immediately grew annoyed with Tohru's fantasizing about his silver-haired cousin, Yuki, just as he always did every time she unloaded her fantasies about what Yuki was like in public. It was all a façade, however, since Yuki was not as happy with the lifestyle of a princely young man as he had always made himself look for the public eye.
Kyo Sohma: And in his dress shoes, which Kyo had to spend five hours in a room guarding, and it was quite a Sohma's pain in the butt.
Tohru, of course, paid little attention to Kyo's complaining about her crush on his distant cousin, Yuki, who in reality was less than happy with his life as the Sohma Family's main prince.
Tohru Honda: I might even get to dance with him tonight.
Obviously, Kyo was really peeved over the girl of his dreams pining over the relative of his who was his number one rival. He commented rather sarcastically about Tohru pining away for his cousin, Yuki.
Kyo Sohma: God, wouldn't that be just super? He's so dreamy.
That was when Tohru's evil foster sisters found their way down the stairs.
Minami Kinoshita: Prince Yuki.
Mai Iwata: The invitations.
Chie Gotou: Move it, slowpokes.
Mio Yamagishi: Give 'em here.
They all practically stampeded poor Tohru right into Kyo. The two of them held onto tightly to one another. Then, the leader of Tohru's foster sisters, Motoko Minagawa, and her best friend amongst her own cronies, Rika Aida, hollered from atop the stairs. The two eldest of Tohru's foster sisters brought their foster sisters down to a silence upon their hollering at their younger sisters from other misters, but not before some infighting amongst the younger foster sisters could occur.
Motoko Minagawa: Alright! Knock it off!
Rika Aida: That means everyone!
Then, the two eldest of the girls started descending down the stairs. Kyo was the only one to comment. He did so under his breath, though.
Kyo Sohma: Great! Here come the two leaders of all the psycho ladies!
A/N: that part from Kyo Sohma, my readers, is my surprising twist on the famous Beyoncé song 'All the Single Ladies'. I know it's not a very good tribute to the song, but I couldn't resist adding it when I first thought up the comment from the fiery redhead that is Kyo Sohma.
As Kyo commented about Motoko and her same-aged friend, Rika's, arrival and his beloved Tohru stayed near him and kept an eye on the invitations to the ball for the most important prince in all of Sohma Land, Minami, Mio, Mai and Chie kept assigning blame to one another for each other's short comings. It was not until Chie told the others to zip it that they realized that their arguing was looking bad to Motoko and Rika, and they all stopped assigning blame to one another just long enough to have peace.
Chie Gotou: Shut up, guys! They're coming.
Between the two eldest of Tohru's evil foster sisters, Motoko was the only one who spoke to her younger foster sister cohorts about their unspeakable behavior regarding their shared obsession with the Sohma prince, Yuki.
Motoko Minagawa: You know, ladies, it takes hours to get you looking even presentable. Now, we need to do the whole thing all over again.
Then, Motoko and her best friend and foster sister, Rika, headed over to where the invitations were… in Tohru's hands.
Rika Aida: And you? Hand 'em over.
Of course, Tohru was willing to give up the invitations in her hands which were for her foster sisters… all six of them, that was. Motoko and Rika, however, wanted their foster sister, Tohru, to hand every last invitation to the Sohma Ball over to them.
Motoko Minagawa: Come on. Come on. Cough it up!
Tohru tried reasoning with her two lead foster sisters.
Tohru Honda: I am invited, Minagawa-senpai, Aida-senpai.
Of course, Minami and the rest of Tohru's same-age-to-younger foster sisters did not want their foster sister to attend the Sohma ball even as a servant. Mio just gagged at the thought of it.
Mai Iwata: If Tohru goes, she'll just embarrass us.
Of course, Kyo made his own move on Tohru by trying to defend her against her own evil foster sisters.
Kyo Sohma: And what makes all of you so sure that she'd do something like that?
Obviously, however, Tohru's foster sisters felt no threat to their presence at the Sohma Ball from Kyo, as to all six of them, the orange-haired teenager was just their ideal prince's cousin, and nothing else. It did not help with the poor guy's reputation with the outside world that even as an important member of the Sohma family, he was still treated as an outcast, even by his immediate family and spoken of cruelly by his own relatives. Of course, he would not have been much of a threat to their entry to the Sohma Ball. Mai was the one to talk back to Kyo about Tohru's very presence at the Sohma Ball with them.
Mai Iwata: Simple, orange-haired one. Our foster sister, Tohru, has nothing to wear to the Sohma Ball.
Kyo was not happy about what her foster sister, Mai, had pointed out about his Tohru, but he could not reject it as a fact any less than another person could have.
Kyo Sohma's voiceover: It wasn't like Tohru could've done anything about her situation, though. She'd just been left that 'in-dept' from when her parents had died under the mysterious, but still pretty tragic circumstances at which poor Katsuya and Kyoko Honda had. Katsuya, himself, had always been such a healthy young man, even after he became a father. It was such a surprise when he died of poorly treated, incurable pneumonia. Kyoko, herself, died in a traffic accident when a moving car with an already dead driver who had suffered from a heart attack whilst driving ran her over in the middle of the street. And of course, poor Tohru was consequently orphaned by both of her parents leaving the world ahead of schedule as a result.
Then, Motoko and Rika strolled up to Tohru as though to give her a reassurance of some sort. Motoko had even placed Tohru's head in her hands to smother her with sisterly affection, or rather pretend to smother her perfectly naïve foster sister with her own brand of sisterly affection, anyway.
Motoko Minagawa: Now, now, ladies. Of course, Tohru can go to the Sohma Ball with us all.
Tohru might have been more than willing to believe the very eldest of her foster sisters, Motoko, but her guy friend, Kyo, knew better than to think that his friend and love interest's foster sisters' word to the poor, unsuspecting girl had ever come without a price of some sort. Of course, not even Kyo suspected that it would have been Rika who would tell his precious Tohru what she had to do before the Sohma Ball. Motoko even went and snatched Tohru's own invitation out of her poor foster sister's hand as the two eldest had both left Tohru's side to list the chores which they wanted Tohru to do all alone while they would have doubtlessly been attending the Sohma Ball without her, instead of keeping their word to their poor foster sister.
Rika Aida: Unfortunately, she has a lot of things to do before she's allowed to even think about the Sohma Ball.
Then, as though right on cue, Motoko took out the list of chores that the rest of them wanted Tohru to do by herself the rest of the day, and quite possibly into the night. It was also an incredulously long list of chores, too.
Motoko Minagawa: First, she must polish my shoes, then cook us all a hot pot, whiten the bathtubs, shampoo the dog, re-shingle the roof, give the limo a little wax and shine…
Rika and the rest of Tohru's foster sisters only chuckled as Motoko's list of chores for their shared foster sister went on. Even Motoko, herself, chuckled at the list of chores she had carefully crafted to keep Tohru busy all day long. The poor girl was never going to get a lick of time to work on her own dress for the Sohma Ball.
Motoko Minagawa: Shall I continue?
That was when Rika and the rest of Tohru's evil foster sisters just burst out into laughter at all of the chores Motoko had prepared for her. Of course, Kyo was far less than willing to let his beloved Tohru simply put up with her foster sisters' petty list of chores, as he knew why they had really assigned her such tasks.
Kyo Sohma: Tohru, say 'no'. You've got no reason to put up with that.
Motoko only rolled her list of chores for Tohru, alone, back into the scroll she had set it on instead of a set of paper sheets, walked up to hers and Tohru's other foster sisters' ideal prince's cousin, and spoke to him in a totally uncalled for tone.
Motoko Minagawa: Oh, do shut up and get back to your place in the palace. You're not her 'prince charming'.
Then as though his situation with them all could not get any worse, Motoko, Rika and the rest of Tohru's rather abusive foster sisters pushed poor Kyo back out the door to their house.
Rika Aida: She's right. You're nothing but a cousin.
Of course, Kyo had something to say about the way his love interest, Tohru's, foster sisters talked about him. The words which came from out past his lips, however, did not seem to sound too confident.
Kyo Sohma: Am not. I'm-I'm more of a relative_ r-really.
With that, Kyo finally decided to walk away from the house, the situation and from his beloved Tohru before her could embarrass himself any further by not being capable of telling off her evil foster sisters.