Ayame Sohma

is one of the recurring characters of the Fruits Basket series, as well as one of the main protagonists of the Fruits Basket: The Three Musketeers Arc. He is the older brother of Yuki Sohma by ten years.

Ayame is the Snake of the Chinese Zodiac and one of the oldest members of the Cursed Sohmas. He is best friends with Hatori Sohma and Shigure Sohma, and the three of them make up the Mabudachi Trio. Unlike his brother, Ayame is extremely vivacious, flamboyant, confident, and self-centered. He is absolutely obsessed with gaining Yuki's love, as he realized his mistakes of completely ignoring Yuki and denying him support in their childhood. As the series progresses, Yuki gradually accepts Ayame as a brother and even tries to understand him.

He runs a shop, named after himself; that sells custom-made "romantic costumes" such as frilly dresses and maid costumes, with the help of Mine Kuramae, his seamstress and lover.

In Fruits Basket Another, he is married to Mine and the father of Hibika Sohma and Chizuru Sohma.

Appearance
Ayame is a tall, thin young man. He has long, straight silver-grey hair and gold eyes (yellowish-green in the 2001 anime). He is often dressed in rather flamboyant outfits, most of which he designs and tries on, then sell to his customers. His casual clothes seem to reflect a Chinese design, much like Yuki's.

As a snake, he is long, thin and white in color.

After he becomes a normal human, Ayame wears snake's skin shoes. This is seen when he is searching for a new home for Yuki in the last volume of the series.

Personality
He is extremely flamboyant and overconfident, often speaking of himself in a much brighter light than others, while in truth he just wishes that he and Yuki were closer. One of the few things as brothers that Yuki and Ayame have in common, is that they both enjoy annoying Kyo. A few of the names that Ayame calls Kyo are "Lucky Kyou" and "Kyon-Kichi", both of which he calls Kyo to annoy him, which he succeeds at doing.

Ayame is constantly trying to get closer to Yuki due to their separation as children. He once told Tohru that he "was vaguely aware that he even had a brother. By the time he realized it, a deep 'rift' had grown between [Yuki and Ayame]". Yuki also once admitted to Tohru, "I wouldn't say I dislike [Ayame]. He just gets to be too much for me sometimes, is all".

Ayame and Shigure pretend to be a couple and often pretend to do little bromance' scenes where at the end they say 'All right!' and flash a thumbs-up, much to the dismay of Hatori, Kyo, Yuki, and the confusion of Tohru.

He also tends to be a bit of a pervert. For example, when Tohru and Yuki visited his shop, he said any dream could be completed, such as the dream of seeing a woman stepping out of a bathroom. The result of that was Yuki shouting, "That is a crime!"

Early Life
When Ayame, Shigure, Hatori, Kureno were young, they all had a dream that their god was to be born soon which caused them to crowd around Ren Sohma who was pregnant.

One day Ayame was approached by Yuki who grabbed his sleeve wanting to be rescued from Akito, but Ayame coldly brushed him off and walked away. This later became his biggest regret.

Ayame, Shigure, and Hatori all went to high school together and were best friends. Ayame was also the Student Council President. During this time another student developed a crush on him, he however disregarded her feelings entirely, this would later become something he regrets.

Second Year Arc
Ayame asks Tohru to go out with him for lunch, and she agrees. As they walk home, Ayame tells Tohru that he can die if it becomes too cold. When they arrive home, it is shown that Ayame had been in snake form and had crawled into Tohru's shirt. Yuki becomes angry at him, but Ayame just laughs.

Third Year Arc
The shop he owns and works in is a lingerie/costume store, in which he says he sells "romance". He and his coworker, Mine Kuramae, appear to be in a relationship, but when Yuki asks him if she knows about the Sohma curse, he quickly changes the topic to a rare "Mogeta" doll he is holding. When Yuki and Tohru Honda go to visit him, Tohru is extremely fond of his dresses, whereas Yuki is utterly disgusted.

Epilogue
Ayame helps find Yuki an apartment when he prepares to go to college, hoping to find one suitable for him to live in.

The Snake of the Zodiac
Ayame is cursed by the spirit of the Snake of the zodiac. As such, he is sensitive to heat and cold like a cold-blooded snake. Whenever the surrounding becomes too warm or cold for him, Ayame would transform. The Snake is the sixth of all zodiac animals.

Hence, when he steps outside, he always carries an umbrella to shield himself from the sun﻿ and during school days, he would make the Sohmas ferry him to school in a car to avoid transformation. It has been shown that even the slightest wind can cause Ayame to transform and needs warm surroundings to transform back. Ayame also gets colds and the flu easily due to this.

In Chinese culture, Snakes has a deep and complex mind, but if they love, they love with their entire heart, which applies to Ayame rather well.

When Ayame's curse broke, he was subconsciously aware of it. He embraced Mine and was overwhelmed with happiness that he could finally embrace the woman he loves. Ayame's curse was the overall fifth to break.

Trivia

 * Unlike most members of the Zodiac, Ayame was never harmed neither physically nor mentally by Akito Sohma, since he is one of the two Zodiac members that Akito cannot stand.
 * Ayame’s name is derived from the fifth month ayamezuki or “month of irises”
 * Ayame's snake form is white, like that of an albino snake, but instead of having red eyes, Ayame has gold eyes. It is unknown precisely what kind of snake he takes the form of.
 * Like Yuki, his casual clothes reflect a Chinese style.
 * Takaya also wanted to write a story of the meeting between Mine and Ayame, but refrained in doing so since couldn't finish drawing it.

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