Honda Tohru is just a regular school girl who lived with her mom. After her mom was killed in a car accident, Tohru had no place to stay. She set up a tent which was located deep in a forest. Tohru didn’t want to move in with her best friends because she didn’t want to disturb them. When walking to school one morning she sees a house which she didn’t notice earlier. Tohru walks closer to see if anyone is there and meets Souma Shigure with his collection of Juunishi stones. Shigure thought she would be a typical student and think nothing of them, but instead she really liked them. While talking Souma Yuki, Shigure’s cousin, comes up and drops his backpack on Shigure’s head. oO;; Both Tohru and Yuki are surprised to see one another since they are classmates. When the Yuki Club starts questioning Tohru about why she walked to school with Yuki, her best friends scare them away.
Later in the evening when Yuki and Shigure are heading back to their house after dinner, they see Tohru coming back from her part-time job. Of course curious as to where she is staying, they walk up and see a tent. While they are standing there, Tohru pokes her head out and is surprised to see them.
Shigure and Yuki take her back to their house and talk for a while. When Tohru finds out that she is staying on Souma property she apologizes and says that she will pay to stay there, but they tell her the land she was staying on was unstable. When they look outside they find a landslide had destroyed her little camping spot. Devestated, Tohru tries to dig to find her mother’s picture. She starts feeling weak because of a fever so they let her stay the night. She talks with Shigure for a while and tells him about her mother. After she falls asleep, Yuki goes out to get her stuff. When Tohru wakes up she’s surprised, but happy to see her mother’s picture by the bed.
Later when Yuki and Tohru are upstairs, something crashes through the roof. o.o;; Where all the debris had fallen now stands an orange-haired guy named Kyou. Just when he’s about to attack Yuki, Tohru grabs him in an effort to stop the attack. An orange poof of smoke and a few seconds later she finds herself holding not Kyou, but an orange cat. X3 She panics wondering why he turned into a cat, but while that is happening a loose board from the hole in the roof hits her head. This causes her to fall into Yuki and Shigure who are watching the scene. They turn into their respective animals also, the rat and dog.
This alarms her even more and she runs down the stairs with her arms full of animals. She sets them down as Shigure explains to her that when hugged by the opposite sex not in the Souma family, nervous, or weak they turn into their Juunishi form. There’s just a drawback about transforming though, after a while they turn back into their human form… naked. Tohru finds herself in a bad position and apologizes profusely. This is the curse of the Souma family on select members. There are 13 family members, 10 male and 3 female, that are cursed by the vengeful spirits of the Junnishi animals. Even very few people within the family know about it so the fact that Tohru knows brings controversy and unease.