For me this was one of most-anticipated episodes of Fruits Basket since Tooru saw Kyou’s true form. After learning the details of Rin’s life up to this point, I desperately wanted her to stay in that bed, or at least in that house with Tooru. If she just ran out in a huff, it would’ve felt like a major step backwards. I feel like there’s no more room for acting tough and aloof. Rin needs help, from others, now. She’s reached her breaking point.
Sure enough, she’s immediately unnerved and repelled by Tooru upon first seeing her, and when Hatori arrives to take her to the hospital for proper treatment, she damn near leaps out the window! She is every bit the wounded, stubborn Horse, kicking at anyone who tries to get close to her.
After Yuki has a brief chat with Rin (who tells her Haru still loves her very much), we learned that she learned about Tooru through Haru, who tells her Yuki and Kyou’s auras have mellowed considerably thanks to her kindness. When Rin first spotted Tooru at Shigure’s, it was everything she could do not to rush over, put her head in her lap, let her head be pat.
Tooru came off as that kind and caring and parental to Rin, making her Rin’s Kryptonite. Shifting from Haru’s kindness to Tooru’s just wouldn’t do; she doesn’t want to involve or trouble kind people, because she’s so predisposed on leaning on, yearning for, and taking advantage of those people.
If people hate her, Rin thinks, she’s doing it right; and so she continues to be dismissive and hostile towards Tooru. When Tooru realizes that Rin is also trying to break the curse, she wants to help, but Rin doesn’t want her to meddle, because “kind people should just live in their kind world”.
It’s not enough to dissuade Tooru; she’s long since decided that Yes, she WILL Meddle, thank you very much! Like Rin, she has things (and of course people) she can’t give up on. Kind people live in the same world as everyone else, and Tooru is kind precisely because she knows how scary it is to be alone in that world.
But Rin isn’t all alone, nor does she need to be. She’s not putting Tooru out by leaning on her, she’s making her elated just to be needed. Tooru believes she was put on this earth to care for people. She’s not perfect like Rin thinks, as that compulsion is a product of her own trauma. But it’s why Rin feels she can bury her head in Tooru’s bosom and let herself be cared for, at least a little.
Iwami Manaka and Toyosaki Aki are so damn good in this cathartic, multilayered scene, as is the dramatic staging and lighting, and Rin’s slowly falling hair as she launches herself into a hug. In gently breaking down Rin’s self-imposed barriers—built so high they threatened to literally kill her—Tooru proves her value as…Zodiac horse whisperer. I’m sorry; I had to go there!
Rin stops running for running’s sake, and goes to the hospital to recuperate. At school, Haru informs Yuki that he visited Rin, and considered her throwing her IV stand at him as a sign that she was on the mend. While he may not know about Tooru’s plans, he knows he can rest assured with Rin in her care, considering how well she’s done with Yuki and Kyou.
Tooru ends up surprising those two and Shigure by making Jell-O for dessert. Kyou, perceptive rascal that he is, makes the connection between Jell-O and the hospital, correctly guessing Tooru visited Rin. She saw that Rin wasn’t eating the hospital food, and Rin told her she likes Jell-O. Tooru contemplated just how much Rin had taken upon herself for so long, and how tormented her heart was, to clutch her hand so tightly when they hugged.
To Rin’s surprise, Tooru not only comes back, but with homemade Jell-O. Rin blushes a little but calls her baka, which Tooru laughs off as a tsundere tic. I think Rin will find her usual tricks won’t work against someone as resolute as Tooru, who joins her for a walk on the hospital grounds. Rin surrenders and tells her about the curse. Whatever it was hundreds of years ago, now it is nothing but a chain.
Rin also tells Tooru that Kureno will be of no help due to his loyalty to Akito—not even considering him “one of them” since he has no will to break the chain. Tooru still thinks she should talk to him, but Rin grabs her leg to stop her from doing anything too rash too soon.
Rin then asks Tooru why she wants to break the curse, what its it she can’t give up, and what is most precious to her. Tooru seems poised to answer…but the words don’t come out. Rin still understands, and for the first time sees that her and his strange normal girl’s goals are aligned. She doesn’t explicitly commit to it, but the two become a duo against the curse right then and there.
That night, Tooru dreams of lying in bed in her old apartment when her mother says goodbye for the last time, leaving her alone. No doubt her time with Rin—fellow “orphan by any other name”—dredged that semi-mythical memory from the depths of her psyche.
As she tucks into Tooru’s Jell-O, Rin senses that, like she’s tried to do for most of her life, Tooru hides “what lies beyond the door” from everyone, but everyone who does that eventually reaches a breaking point. Haru helped Rin gently open that door, and Rin hopes someone like that will come to Tooru—unaware that Kyou more or less that person.
The road ahead will be long and potentially vicious, but I can’t tell you how much joy and relief I derived from simply seeing Rin in the hospital, no longer running or building walls around herself. She’s as at peace as we’ve ever seen her. She’s in a place where she can accept tasty Jell-O from a silly, ditzy, profoundly kind girl who is far more reliable than she looks, aims to keep meddling, and won’t be denied.
Read Crow’s thoughts on the episode here!
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