Fruits Basket, Vol. 4

As Tohru Honda begins her second year at Kaibara High while living among the cursed Sohma family, this volume brings her face to face with Akito, the frightening head of the Sohma clan, in an unsettling classroom encounter that leaves Tohru and Yuki shaken and reopens the painful history between them.

Elsewhere, Tohru's growing friendship with the shy Kisa draws jealousy from Hiro, whose frustration turns on Tohru herself, while Yuki's flamboyant older brother Ayame tries, awkwardly, to rebuild the sibling relationship that years of distance broke. Beneath the school-life humor, the volume keeps pressing at the loneliness underneath the zodiac curse — and at how much of it Tohru's warmth is quietly starting to heal.