His Snow White Burden

After Utsuho left Lilly tied up, he stopped a moment and let his hair down so he could see it. His white bangs fell over his eyes and he touched it gently.

"This damn hair...it may never reverse back to its original color...but I can't lose hope yet. I know I can't bring my parents back to life and I can't go back in time to stop the murders from happening. But if there was a way I could... I would." The young Itsuwaribito thought to himself as he started putting his hair back up.

He would never admit it to anyone, but sometimes at night he would get up and go find a puddle of water to check if his hair had reversed while he was sleeping. Or if everything had just been a dream and he still had his black hair from when he was a child. But no such luck, every time he saw his snow white hair he would splash the water in frustration and go back to bed. Angry that his body has decided to constantly remind him of the horror that he saw when he was a child.

"What am I doing? I can't stand here feeling sorry for myself, that's just uncool. I gotta go check out that signal flare from Hime." Utsuho reprimanded himself, he started racing his way towards Iwashi's flare location and prepared himself for battle.

While his feet carried him towards his destination, he continued thinking to himself about his snow white burden.

"I could ask Yakuma about it. He's a doctor so I'm sure he's come across cases like this before in the past. Hell, maybe he could even tell me how long it'll take before it turns back to normal. But then again... I don't want to drag him into a hopeless quest to restore my hair if there's no way it's turning back to normal."

He could just imagine Yakuma worrying about him in his mother like tendencies and could imagine him making a stupid promise like, "I'll do everything in my power to help you."

The thought made Utsuho smile, "I can hear him now. That stupid horse... too damn nurturing for his own good."

"I share my burden with no one, this is my problem to fix and I won't drag them into it if I can help it." Utsuho declared out loud, "I can't afford to lose a new family."

And with that, Utsuho raced to Iwashi's flare and hoped his friends weren't in danger. All the while still thinking about his white hair curse.