Fruit Basket is a Japanese manga series illustrated by Natsuki Takaya. The series title is derived from a game that is played in almost all elementary schools in Japan. And is one of the most famous manga series of all time.
What is a fruit basket all about?
This manga series tells the story of a girl named Tohru Honda, an orphanage girl. Tohru’s mother died in a car accident. She then decided to live with her grandfather and soon left that place too because of the unsupportive environment. She also declined the offer made by her two best friends because she didn't want to be a burden on them by staying at their place. So, she decides to live on her own in a tent.
We see in the manga series that her tent was all destroyed by the landslide. She was then offered to live in the soma house with Yuki Soma and his cousin. On her first day of living there, she got to know about Kyo, Yuki, and Shigure’s yellow-haired cousin who crashed into a ceiling and challenged yuki to a fight.
At first, Tohru tried to stop him but ended up falling onto him which transformed him into a cat. She then discovered the Sohma family curse. The curse was on the twelve members of the family excluding Kyo. The curse was that the family was possessed by the Chinese zodiacs and would get turned into their zodiac animal when they were weak, under-stressed or when hugged by the opposite sex.
After learning about the truth Tohru handled them with care which helped the Sohma family a lot with the curse. We will be seeing ahead that Tohru somehow falls in love with Kyo. Would Kyo accept Tohru’s love? Will they end up together?
What was the earliest sign of Tohru’s feelings for Kyo?
There were a lot of little moments where we could see Tohru growing close to Kyo. Tohru herself said that she had already fallen in love with him at some point. When she chases him and also when his true form was revealed. We see this clearly in volume 12, where Tohru is trying her level best to break the curse as she doesn't want to lose Kyo at any cost.
There were a lot of moments in the manga series where it's shown that Tohru’s anxiety is mostly over losing people who are close to her. And whenever her anxiety covers her it always leads her ultimately think about Kyo with all the desperation and heartache on her part. In my personal interpretation, we can see from volume 11, it's a bit clear who Tohru likes and how the relationship would be by the end.
Will Tohru end up with Kyo?
The very first thing revealed about Tohru is that she loved the Zodiac cat. When she heard a story from her mother about the cats she cried and said she wished she was born in the years of the cats instead of the dogs. This shows that Tohru was always on the cat's side from the very beginning when she didn't even know Kyo or the other Sohma family members. This shows that she was very true and was just herself the whole time.
Tohru was rejected by Kyo in the manga but she never lost hope and kept on trying. Kyo rejected Tohru because he knew that his future was to be confirmed with the Cat’s Room, so he tried not to get attached to anyone. And we also see that Kyo was very rude to Tohru. He lost his temper over Tohru more than once and was always distancing himself from her, showing that he is very insensitive.
But Tohru never allowed Kyo’s bad behavior to drive her away. We can say Kyo was attracted towards Tohru and was acting rudely towards her to hide his feelings and he doesn’t want to drive her into this.
We see in chapter 122, volume 21 that Tohru fell off the cliff and was lying unconsciously. Kyo came and kissed her. He asked Tohru if she is okay with him hugging her in his different form. Tohru replied that she is so in love with him and that nothing can beat her love for him. Tohru and Kyo ended up together by the end of the story.
