I remember being told at one time - I forget now, when exactly it was - that the moment a child is conceived, God draws a long, glowing road for them to travel. It didn’t matter how long the child was to live- the length of the road ahead was immeasurable. For some, it continued even after death.

Maybe I would have believed whoever it was who told me this, if I hadn’t stopped believing in God many years before.

T s u d z u r a o r i :
the winding road

- -

Chapter I: God
Part 01

When I was nine years old, my mother told me she was expecting another child. She was young and lovely, not even twenty-seven. She had long, dark hair, uncommon for our clan. She told me she and my father had planned to have two children – that’s why the named me Oodora, meaning big tiger. It was so my sibling could be the little tiger, Kodora.

I told her I wanted it to be a boy. I said there was nothing I wanted more than a little brother to run around and play with in the giant Torakiba mansion.

It was so empty.

Months passed, and a beautiful boy-child was brought into the world.

When Kodora’s hair began to appear, people started to refer to him as “that child” instead of by name. I didn’t understand how white hair was really such a terrible thing. Because it isn’t. Everyone, however, seemed to think that way.

It was as if he were an abomination. A bane upon the earth.

He seemed to be a perfectly pretty little baby to me.

Even our parent’s began to grow distant with him. It was because they were afraid. They, after all, knew what he was. Even when they tried to explain it to me, I didn’t listen.

I loved Kodora, even if he was one of the “four gods.”

When he was about five, our parents disappeared. I never learned what happened to them, nor did I think much of it. They simply vanished, leaving me to raise my little brother on my own. Our grandfather, the head of the Torakiba clan, was cold and strict. His advisors liked us no more than he did, and even the servants kept their distance from us. In the end, I was all Kodora had.

It wasn’t until much later I realized he was all I had too.

So I took over the roles of both mother and father. I read to him, took him on walks, and taught him whatever our tutors didn’t. Though he was almost always clinging to my side, every so often he slipped away. Most of the time he would appear again before long, but when sunset came one day he still hadn’t returned, I got worried.

It was in the market that I found him. There was a small crowd of people eying something in an alleyway and whispering to each other.

I went over and asked someone what happened.

“I heard,” the woman said, “that a child just attacked a group of older children. Beat them up pretty badly, too. Hard to believe, but she is pretty strange – I mean, just look at her hair.”

I knew immediately whom she was talking about. I shoved my way through the crowd, ignoring the grunts of “How rude!” or “Say excuse me!”

There on the ground, covered in dirt and tears (and something else that I didn’t want to think about at the moment), sat my little brother, curled up with his head in his knees, and sobbing quietly beneath the people’s stares. I was quickly at his side, my arms around him. I must have yelled for the spectators to get lost, for they began to shuffle away.

Kodora wasn’t badly hurt; a couple of bruises, but those were all.

I think that was the first time he had bullied, and the only time he had ever fought back. I will never know what happened, but I can suspect his own power may have scared him. It scared me too.

I knew then, undeniably, that he wasn’t a normal child. A sweet child, a lovely child, but never “normal.”

I couldn’t leave his side that night.

- -

“Freak! Go die in some hole, you ugly dog!”

The children around him giggled and sneered. He gave my side one final blow with the point of his foot, and then turned away, finished. “Come on you guys. She’s too scared to fight back.” The other snickered and walked away with him. I curled up into a ball in the dirt. My lip was bleeding, my eye was bruised, and now my side was too. There was a burn on my arm where they had stuck a match. And I felt sick.

But I couldn’t throw up. One of the adults might yell at me. They hadn’t seen what just happened, or they chose to ignore it. They didn’t like me any more than the children did.

But I didn’t blame them.

I was different. I didn’t have the reddish-brown hair custom to our clan. I looked more like a girl than a boy. Everyone said I had strange powers.

I wished desperately to be more like my brother. He didn’t have my colorless hair, but he was different too. He had accepted that fact. I could never be so strong.

“Kodora?” Nii-san’s voice. “Oh my god, Kodora. Are you alright?” I looked up and smiled at him. He was carrying groceries. I scrambled to my feet and wobbled over to him before he could bend over to help me. “Kodora, did they beat up again?” His voice was worried. I didn’t answer, but it was obvious. I avoided his gaze. I took a plastic bag from his hand, and smiled up at him again, albeit weakly.

Oodora-nii ruffled my hair. He cared, but I couldn’t let him worry. He would anyway.

He knew I could protect myself.

But I didn’t want to.

- -

The day I met him, it was raining.

Sword training with my father was boring, and I had slipped out of the house when he wasn’t looking. I liked the rain, had an umbrella, and knew my way around the Hiryuu district pretty well.

I hadn’t been out for long before I ran into a soaking wet, crying little girl, who seemed to be about my age.

She didn’t look like a Hiryuu, but had the stripes of a Torakiba. I stared at her white hair. I had never seen anything like it. “Hey, what are you crying about?”

“I-I’m lost!” she bawled. I winced slightly.

“Okay, where do you live?”

“I-In the big house with N-Nii-san,” she replied. I looked at her for a few seconds.

“I can’t help at all with just that!” I turned on my heel, about to walk away. She grabbed onto my sleeve suddenly, almost making me fall over onto the ground. I whipped my head over to her. “Hey! Let me-”

“D-don’t leave me. P-please,” she whimpered. Her eyes glistened with tears. She was… really cute. I probably blushed.

“F-fine! I guess you can come with me, but dad’s going to be angry!”

I got home, and dad began to yell at me, saying something about leaving the house without permission, but then saw the girl behind me. His face turned troubled, rather than angry. He told me, solemn, to wait at the door as he went to get mom.

When he came back, mom followed. She forced a smile and patted he girl on the head. “My my, Kodora-san. Shouldn’t you get back to the mansion? Your grandfather must be very worried.”

“I-I don’t know where I am!” Kodora wailed, still sobbing. Mom nodded, in that understanding way mothers always do.

“Alright, alright. Don’t cry. We’ll get you home. This little boy is Ryuuzaki,” she said, pointing at me, “And I’m his mother. That big, scary man over than is his father. Come now,” she held out her hand for Kodora’s, “Why don’t we get you into some warm clothes? You can borrow some of Ryuu’s.”

Kodora’s sobs quieted. She nodded and took mom’s hand.

“Hey, wait! Mom, I don’t want to share clothes with some girl!” I protested quickly. Kodora turned her head.

She was glaring at me.

Mom sighed. “But Ryuu, sweetheart, Kodora-san is a boy.”

- -

I remember the day I met them clearly.

My mother took me to the Torakiba mansion to meet them. She said she had a lot to talk about with Kodora’s grandfather and Ryuu’s parents. She didn’t really like it, but didn’t have a choice.

The two of them were playing in the courtyard, tossing bread to the ducks in the pond. Mother sent me off to play with them while the “grown-ups talked about boring things.” I caught a glimpse of Oodora-nii for the first time then. He was dressed in a suit and tie, and pushing his grandfather’s wheelchair through the house.

I joined them a little reluctantly. They were different from everyone else, I could tell. But in a way, I was glad to see two people who were like me: different.

Ryuu noticed me before Kodora did. He said nothing, but nudged Kodora in the side. Kodora giggled, looked up, and when he saw me, his smile faded in surprise.

But it soon returned.

I might have been only a child, but it melted my heart. “So, you’re Tsubasa? Nii-san said I’d meet you today!” His voice sounded like bells, beautiful bells. “I’m Kodora!”

Ryuu didn’t smile as brightly. “Hiryuu Ryuuzaki.”

I looked at him for a little while. “Uh, isn’t Ryuuzaki a family name?”

“Yes. My parents are weird,” he glared at the dirt for a second before continuing, “Call me Ryuu.”

I laughed involuntarily. He was just so… awkward. I looked up, obviously embarrassed. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“Sorry, sorry!” I turned to Kodora. I already liked these guys. “So, are you his girlfriend?”

Kodora’s face turned red and his jaw clenched. “N-n-n-!” he stuttered. Ryuu let out an unexpected bark of laughter.

“Ha, Kodora! You really do look like a girl if girls are confusing you for one!” Kodora let out a shriek of something between anger and horror, and pounded Ryuu in the stomach in one swift movement.

Ryuu fell the ground, clutching his middle. “It was a joke! A joke!”

“It wasn’t funny!”

I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. These two were amazing. We bonded instantly, as children often do.

They group together with those similar to themselves. But unlike other children, we didn’t drift apart over time. We became inseparable. There was a link between us the adults didn’t really understand, and the only one who probably ever did was Oodora-nii.

Our precious, precious Oodora-nii.

I curse the world for making things end up they way they did.