One day, Tohru comes upon a house in the woods which is the home of some young men from the Sohma family, including Yuki Sohma, an admired and worshipped yet aloof boy from her school. Feeling sorry for her, and desperate to end their take-out eating habits and filthy living conditions, the Sohmas offer her their spare room in exchange for cooking and housework. When her tent is buried that night in a landslide, she has no option but to accept.

Tohru soon discovers the Sohma family's secret, and the reason why Yuki is so private and taciturn: many members of the family are possessed by animal spirits from the Chinese zodiac ("Jyûnishi" in Japanese), and transform into that animal when hugged by the opposite gender or when they are under huge ammout of stress. When she promises to keep their secret, the Sohmas allow Tohru to keep her memories rather than hypnotically erasing them, a fate that has previously befallen all who have found them out.

The story follows the lives of Tohru and the Sohma family, as they deal with each other and a society where neither quite fit in.

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