Chapter 6

With her grandfather's remodeled home nearly ready, Tohru walks the Sohmas through the household chores and hands Shigure the address where she will be staying. Shigure thanks her for her care and wishes her well, and she promises to guard their secret and to face whatever comes without despair. After she goes, Shigure admits he had expected Yuki and Kyo to talk her into staying. Both are plainly troubled, though Yuki points out that she had always meant to leave once the renovations were done, and Kyo grumbles that having an outsider underfoot felt strange. Alone in a bare room, Tohru studies a photograph of her mother and decides she was foolish to imagine ever becoming part of the Sohma family.

A memory carries the story back to Tohru's school days and a class game called Fruits Basket. As the caller assigned a fruit to each child, Tohru was handed the role of riceball. Only now does she understand that the boys were mocking her; back then she had genuinely liked riceballs and simply waited to be named so she could take part. The call never came, and she was left watching the others play without her. Returning to the present, Tohru greets her waiting relatives while reflecting that the riceball was never able to belong among the fruits, a feeling that stretches across both her own family and the Sohmas.

This installment ends the first volume and supplies the meaning behind the series' title. Shigure appears on the cover, Tohru's late parents Kyoko and Katsuya surface in photograph and memory, and her extended family, an aunt, a grandfather, and two cousins, enter the story as she rejoins them.