I've been wanting to write something about the number three for a while. Working in a nursing home, I have come to realize that deaths come in three. And then I thought, if this is true with deaths, why not in other things. Kuwabara has just the right combination of belief, reasoning, and insight to pull off a fairly good story.
If there was one thing Kuwabara was certain of it was this; the number three was powerful.
Kuwabara was already well versed in the way of the number three. It was on his third birthday that he had come to see his first ghostly visitors. One was his mother, who had died that very morning in a 9 car pileup on the highway. The second was his father; having died in a head on collision rushing to get to the hospital Kuwabara's mother had been taken to. The last was Kuwabara's only Aunt. She had died while working on a car in the shop she'd owned. The transmission blew, quite literally. Apparently the car was a cast away of the Yakuza's, and they never left their stuff for other to pry through.
So in addition to the number three, Kuwabara knew that cars had a power of their own. Unlike the number three, Kuwabara hated cars because, for the most part, they took away life and left a mess of everything. It was when Yusuke was run over by a car that Kuwabara decided he wanted nothing to do with any motorized vehicle of the sort. Ironically, he later became a mechanic, working in the very same shop that his Aunt had died in.
In agreeance with Kuwabara, Yusuke held a special kinda hatred towards cars. Though Kuwabara eventually learned to get over his car problems, Yusuke remained firm in his vendetta against all motorized monstrosities. After being killed by one and harassed by another Yusuke could stand the things. And really he had no need for any tolerance, other than accepting Kuwabara's occupation. Yusuke was fast enough to anywhere he needed to be and quite often took the journey of pace up and down the entire country of Japan to clear his mind. He's only done this twice so far and Kuwabara liked to entertain the thought that on the third go, Yusuke would have some kinda life changing epiphany.
Sadly, it was on his third jaunt around the country that Yusuke made up his mind to travel to the Makai in order to work out his daddy issues. Kuwabara wasn't able to see or speak to Yusuke for three years after that.
There was a lighter side to the power of three, Kuwabara acknowledged. When Yusuke had come into his demon heritage, the dynamic of the team shifted from an equal balance (the only thing able to overcome three was some sorta symmetry) of two demons, two humans to three demons and one human. Instead of being offed like Kuwabara was expecting, his three teammates ended up separating from him and going off on their own. The exclusion from the Makai mission hurt like Hell, but Kuwabara felt lucky to be alive.
The power of three also presided over love. As selfish as it may seem, Kuwabara was glad that when it came to love, three wasn't as severe with him as it was with Shizuru. Her first love interest was when she was 14. Not three weeks into their relationship, the boy was stabbed to death in a gang war. Shizuru picked up smoking, three cigarettes a day, and Kuwabara picked up street fighting. When Kuwabara saw Shizuru casting Sakyou those looks at the dark tournament, he knew Sakyou was going to die. That fact sickened Kuwabara not only because of how sure he felt about it, but also because he felt a sense of relieve. Three never dealt out bad things without several good things to balance it; that's what kept everything right.
So Sakyou died and Shizuru was now up to smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. It would be another three years before, Shizuru met the man of her dreams; he did not meet his untimely death and instead went on to marry Shizuru. The two had three kids, each with a three year gap between them. On the good side, they won the tournament and got to live, Genkai was brought back to life, and Yukina confided in Kuwabara that she had found her brother in Hiei, though she was waiting for him to come to terms with it. Kuwabara thought that three may have gotten a bit confused if it thought that last bit was entirely good.
Kuwabara was different than his sister when it came to love and the power of three. When he fell in love with Botan, however brief that have been, she did not die. Instead, when he fell in love with Yukina, Botan was able to find the man that was just right for her, Koenma. Not surprising there. The same thing happened to Yukina when Kuwabara realized Yukina was only the second girl he'd fallen in love with and he knew three would never allow them to be together. Oddly enough, Yukina went on to fall in love with Chuu. Kuwabara suspected that the power of three had to have been heavily involved with that.
Kuwabara was also very strict with how many friends he had. In his everyday life, he had Sakamura, Kirishima, and Okubo. They were just as important to him and Yusuke, Kurama, and Hiei were. Just different. While his demon friends were able to challenge his fighting spirit, his human friends were there in a way demons could never be. Actually being there was a key part of human relationships. Kurama and Yusuke would try to understand this and be there, years down the road. Hiei, surprisingly, was there more than the others. Stupid three eyes.
And then there was death. Namely Yusuke's. Kuwabara knew he'd died twice and that both times three had favored him in granting him the chance to live (and always it had given Yusuke a better life to live). But Kuwabara was terrified that the next time Yusuke succumb to death, there would be no coming back.
It was then that Kuwabara realized that the same could be said for him. Rando had almost killed him and he'd seen a flash of Aunt smiling at him. When Toguro had plunged his hand into Kuwabara's chest, he had felt the presence of his father before his heart started to beat again. It was these occurrences that lead Kuwabara to wonder how his mother would come to him.
And when.