Katsuya Honda is the late father of Tohru Honda and husband of Kyoko Honda. He appears only in the manga in flashbacks. Katsuya habitually spoke formally (see Honorific speech in Japanese) as a way of distancing himself from the world, a habit that, according to his father, Tohru later adopted. He met Kyoko as a student teacher at her middle school and recognized that her rebellious behavior was as much protection as his own polite manners; in turn, Kyoko initially described his manners as "fake polite". Despite their eight-year difference in age (he was 21, she was 13), they fell in love; he helped her set aside her gangster lifestyle and they married after she finished middle school. Three years after Tohru was born, Katsuya died of pneumonia while on a business trip.
Kyoko Honda is the late mother of Tohru Honda, appearing only in flashbacks and photographs treasured by Tohru. In middle school, Kyoko was the leader of an all-female bosozoku gang called Red Butterfly Suicide Squad, the name coming from how a motorcycle's tail-lights supposedly look like a red butterfly at night. She told Kyo Sohma she was ignored and rejected by her parents, and fell in love with a student teacher named Katsuya Honda who stood up for her when her parents disowned her after a gang fight. Katsuya and Kyoko married after she left middle school and had a daughter, Tohru, and Kyoko learned how to work through difficulties together with Katsuya. She was devastated by her husband's death and nearly killed herself before remembering her three-year-old daughter needed her. Because of her experiences, Kyoko raised Tohru to believe that everyone needs to feel needed, and helped Arisa Uotani leave her own gang. Tohru calls Kyoko the most important person in her life, and repeats bits of her mother's emotional wisdom throughout the series. Kyoko died a few months before the start of the series when she was struck by a car. Kyo was present at the accident but could not save her without revealing his curse, and heard her last words as "I'll never forgive you." In chapter 135, a flashback of her final moments shows that she was trying to say "I'll never forgive you if you don't keep your promise to protect Tohru."
