Handa remembered the time when he first met Tohru Honda. Months ago, at Shigure's house, Handa was reading his favorite book about animals, when he heard some noises coming from downstairs. So, he leave his book aside and went downstairs, only to see Kyo being beaten up by Kagura. In response to that, Handa ran towards Kyo and Kagura and asked Kyo if he was okay. Kyo was unable to respond to his younger brother. And then, Kagura hugged Kyo whilst asking who would done such a thing, only for Shigure to say that she done it.
Tohru was surprised to see someone resembled like Kyo, but with a slightly different hair color, and then asked Shigure and Yuki about Handa.
"Oh, him?" answered Shigure back. "That's Handa Sohma, the Dog of the zodiac, and the younger brother of Kyo."
"I didn't know Kyo-kun had a younger brother," Tohru replied back, "and another Dog of the zodiac." She then approached Handa with a smile and said hi to him. Startled by this, Handa quickly turned around, only to see Tohru in front of him. Tohru then asked him if she had startled him.
"Yes, sorry," Handa responded back with a reason why, "you see, I'm afraid of girls because they might hug me and I'll be transformed into a dog." But he placed his hands on his mouth because he realized that he had told Tohru the zodiac curse. But luckily, Tohru already learned about the zodiac curse, and promised to keep it a secret. This calms the young boy a lot, and eventually introduced himself to her.
After that flashback, Handa quickly intervened and frantically told Kyo and Yuki that Masayuki and Emiko are his childhood friends, and they won't ostracize or harass Tohru.
"Are you sure about that?" Kyo asked him seriously in unsure.
And then, Masayuki responded to Kyo in confirmation, "We won't do anything bad to Tohru, okay? We'll do everything for her."
"It's not what you think," Emiko added with nervousness.
This eventually convinces Kyo and Yuki, and they stopped intimidating them, with Yuki granting Masayuki and Emiko the right to call Tohru "Tohru-chan." Everything went cool.