Ayame Sohma

## Voices

**Ayame Sohma** (草摩 綾女, *Sōma Ayame*) is one of the 2 tetargonists of the series and the main protagonist of the *Spy 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.

## Appearance

Ayame is a tall, thin, attractive young man with 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!"

## Etymology

* The name **Ayame** means "design" (綾) (**aya**) and "woman, girl, daughter" (女) (**me**).

## 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 ***ayame**zuki* 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.