Hajime Sohma

Built tall and lean, Hajime is practically a mirror of his father, sharing Kyo's youthful features and haircut right down to the slightly spiked, nape-length style and the long bangs that hide most of his forehead. The resemblance stops at coloring: his hair leans brown rather than Kyo's vivid orange, and his eyes are the warm brown he inherited from Tohru.

He wears his school uniform loosely, leaving the top two buttons open to show a plain white shirt beneath. On his wrist sits the Juzu bead bracelet his father once needed as the Cat's cursed vessel; Hajime strung it in his own arrangement and wears it purely as a token of love for Kyo.

At first glance Hajime reads as guarded and quick to irritation, saddled with a temper and a habit of tuning out whatever is happening around him. His tongue is sharp and unfiltered, so he often blurts out something cutting and only registers the sting a beat too late, a pattern that surfaces most in his back-and-forth with Mutsuki. Underneath that prickly surface, though, he is relaxed and genuinely easy company.

Leading the student council has made him steady and dependable, the sort who ends up rescuing people whether he wants to or not. Raised alongside two younger siblings, he slips naturally into a big-brother role, reading others' feelings and dispensing parental lectures, telling Sawa Mitoma it is fine to lean on others or scolding Mina for dashing about too soon after a fever. His relatives tease him with the nickname 'Dad', to his annoyance. Like Tohru he is nurturing and handy around the house, comfortable cooking and cleaning, and like Kyo he flusters easily and will bolt from situations that overwhelm him.

As the firstborn of Tohru and Kyo, Hajime was raised in the countryside with a younger brother and sister and grew especially close to his adoptive grandfather, Kazuma. People kept noting how much he resembled his father as he aged, and every time they did, he caught Kyo wearing a nervous smile he could not explain. Because his parents were close with Yuki Sohma and Machi Kuragi, he grew up beside their son Mutsuki, the two playing together constantly and, once school began, sleeping over at each other's homes; he became friends with the other Sohma children the same way.

During middle school he crossed paths with Ren Sohma inside the family compound, who unsettled him by voicing a hope that he would not turn into a 'monster' the way his father once had. Only after he finished middle school did his parents finally explain the zodiac curse and the Cat's curse that had shaped Kyo's life. The revelation briefly stunned him, but it made every strange moment click into place, from Kyo's uneasy smiles to Ren's cryptic remark. Grateful to finally know the truth, he resolved to enroll at Kaibara High, his parents' old school, so he could stand in the environment that had made them who they are.

In Fruits Basket Another, his first meeting with Sawa Mitoma is an accident, as she steps on his face while stumbling into the student council room and flees mid-apology. Their paths keep crossing, and his brusque manner repeatedly leaves her convinced she has done something terrible when he is simply being his gruff self. Over these encounters he returns her lost student ID, presses her to stop apologizing for needing help and to rely on people instead, and slowly becomes one of the steadying influences that shape the young woman she grows into.