Mabudachi Trio

The Mabudachi Trio is the bond shared by the three oldest cursed members of the Sohma family: Hatori Sohma, Shigure Sohma, and Ayame Sohma. The name translates to something close to true friends, and the three have been inseparable since they were young, moving together through elementary, middle, and high school. Shigure jokingly rebrands the group as the Three Musketeers in the English dub.

Most of what the audience learns about their younger years comes from their school days together. Ayame, more through sheer bluster than cleverness, talked the principal into letting him keep his hair long and went on to serve as student council president, a post he insists Hatori would have filled better. During one class field trip, several classmates caught slipping into the red light district were spared expulsion partly through Ayame's theatrical defense, in which he argued that their curiosity was only natural and offered himself up as an outlet for the student body's urges. Shigure suspects it was really Hatori's quiet intervention that saved the boys and kept Ayame in his position.

Shigure and Ayame play off one another constantly, trading jokes and innuendo, most likely to entertain themselves rather than out of anything deeper. Ayame holds genuine reverence for Hatori's steadiness, which makes Hatori the only person able to rein him in. Hatori, for his part, scolds Shigure over his ridiculous remarks yet privately understands that Shigure is far sharper than the fool he pretends to be.