A New School Term Starts!

Spring returns and, with the hot springs trip behind them, the group steps into a new academic year at Kaibara High. Two more Sohma boys are enrolling, and their arrival stirs plenty of chatter among the students. The day takes a darker turn once Tohru crosses paths with Akito in a school corridor.

Yuki draws fresh attention from newcomers after helping a girl, while Saki picks up on the familiar electric signals of arriving Sohmas. Curious about the two transfers, Arisa dispatches Kyo to track them down, and Tohru tags along even though neither knows the pair's classes. Momiji, Hatsuharu, and Yuki all converge, and when Makoto starts picking apart their looks, Hatsuharu bluntly cuts him back down to size. Momiji then holds Yuki and Kyo behind to share something important.

Alone in the hallway, Tohru is approached by Akito, who introduces himself as the family head and strikes her as gentler than she had pictured, even as he privately belittles her. Yuki arrives and demands to know what was said, only for Akito to press him over skipping the New Year banquet and to hint at re-educating him. A memory surfaces of Akito striking Yuki's feet as punishment for defying the clan, and a shaken Yuki is drawn away when Tohru pushes Akito aside. To lift his spirits, the friends gather for badminton, during which Yuki reflects that the warmth and belonging he once thought impossible have turned out to be real.

This is the 2001 adaptation's thirteenth episode, drawing on chapters 19 and 20 of the manga, and it corresponds to the 2019 series entry You Look Like You're Having Fun. It first aired in Japan on September 27, 2001, and reached the United States on March 25, 2003. The opening theme is For Fruits Basket and the ending is Chiisana Inori.