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Language:
English
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Published:
2019-05-06
Updated:
2019-07-01
Words:
39,938
Chapters:
16/30
Comments:
7
Kudos:
49
Bookmarks:
12
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976

When Spring Comes...Remember Me

Summary:

After a family tragedy, Sakura Alexander returns home to Japan after a decade-long absence to reacquaint herself with her old high school friends: Shigure, Ayame, and Hatori Sohma. She finds many things have changed, but some things always remain the same. She meets Tohru Honda who helps mend her broken soul and perhaps give her courage to say all the things she left unsaid when she left Japan over a decade ago. Even if it's just for a fleeting season, maybe just maybe things can be set right in Sakura's world.

Notes:

First up, hi there, I'm back with a repost (but it's actually done with some minor edits to be done as I post them)

"When Spring Comes...Remember Me" was first published on FFN in August 2004 and finished in August 2013 by me under the pseudonym of "Yuki Seki". With the release of the Fruits Basket remake, I've been visited by the urge to polish this up with about 15 more years of writing under my belt, but for the most part I'm actually surprised it holds up enough for me to want to put forth the effort to update this ^_^

A few notes:

1) To date I still haven't read the manga and this story was based entirely on the 2001 original release of Fruits Basket and some pet theories that I came up with at that point--these theories were likely disproved hence the "mostly" canon compliant tag. I will likely have it all posted before the reboot of Fruits Basket diverges completely from what was originally released.

2) From what I understand from some of the old readers of the story, there are actually things that (kind of) resemble the manga--these items are completely coincidental, but it makes me smile to hear it. I will find out for myself as I'm planning on making 2019 the year I actually -read- the manga and see how it canonically turns out.

3) This story roughly starts just before Episode 24 of the 2001 series and lasts through 25 & 26 then proceeds even further into the future (by the end Yuki, Kyo, & Tohru graduate from high school). What's contained in the story is purely speculation. In general I prefer the Japanese over anything else, but I liked the "Three Musketeers" label over the "Mabudachi Trio", but either one works (also I have not read the Mabudachi short that came out or is coming out).

4) On Character Descriptions in "When Spring Comes":

A lot of the character designs in the original 2001 version of Fruits Basket have been updated to manga specs in the reboot (and overall I like them much better ^_^), but all I had at the time this was originally written were the color palettes introduced in the anime. In the original version of the series, Tohru's eyes sometimes were blue and sometimes more of a sea green color--for this story I've elected to go with sea green though Tohru's eyes are canonically brown...I'm not sure I'm going to be able to remember to update all the descriptions to what's current.

Updates will be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays through the end of the story (as I said it's already written, it just needs minor touch-ups, edits, and some little fixes here and there).

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: The "Fourth Musketeer"

Chapter Text

Prologue: The "Fourth Musketeer"

Tohru Honda sneezed as dust rose from the pile of boxes she’d pulled down out of the closet in the study to go through, causing her to lose her grip on the box she was holding in the process.  Her cheeks went red as she immediately dropped to her knees and began scrambling to put the contents back inside.  "Tohru-kun, what was that?"

Shigure Sohma appeared in the doorway and Tohru turned wide green eyes towards him.  "I am so sorry, I accidentally dropped one of your boxes!"

"Tohru, Tohru, don’t worry about stuff like that," he said reassuringly and came further into the room.  "Well, fancy that…I thought I’d lost those a long time ago."

"Shigure-san?" Tohru asked in confusion as he knelt down beside her.

He picked up one of the books and blew lightly over it sending both of them into a choking fit.  He opened the book and Tohru peered at it and her eyes widened.  "If it isn’t prying too much, may I ask who she is?"

"That, Tohru-kun, was the ‘Fourth’ Musketeer."

Tohru stared in awe at the picture.  Three familiar faces gazed out at her from it, but in the center was a young girl that hadn’t been present in any of the other photo albums Shigure and Ayame had shown to her.  "Where is she now?" Tohru asked.

"Life blows us in a thousand directions, where her life took her, I cannot say," Shigure said expansively and for a moment he became serious, "but I hope one day it might blow her back our way.  Well, qué sera sera, let’s get this old stuff put away."