Disclaimer: Saint Seiya is the property of Masami Kurumada, Toei Productions (anime) and Shueisha.

In Words Unsaid

Seiya opened his eyes in the dark. That dream again, the tsunami dream; himself, taking Saori by the hand, the other saints intermittently beside them, running and running, rooftop to rooftop to ruined temple to ruined temple, while the violent sea breathes threateningly in and out, in almost playful persecution of the scared young duo. Her braveness and serenity giving way to a frown of terror... It always took him a little while to recover from his nightmares; he stood still, trying hard not to estimate exactly how resembling of his waking life those dreams really were. His room was crowded with unlikely cracks and shadows. He, who had defended himself from numerous saints now come and gone, could not defend himself from ghosts.

He rose to his feet and ran his hands through his hair as he walked out the door. His left arm was a little sore from training that day. No sound came from downstairs, nor from the other saints' rooms, and at the end of the hall Saori's bedroom door was closed. Seiya pictured her violet hair spread over a pillow as she slept. Everyone was asleep now, he thought; there were no lights on as he descended the staircase for a glass of water. The silence and the darkness didn't usually bother him in his occasional episodes of insomnia, but today it seemed that this was the loneliest time of all. On the ground floor a window was open, and a light nightly breeze teased the curtains. Seiya felt a chill as he turned right to the kitchen — from where, surprisingly, a small light emanated. It was most likely Ikki, who was regularly troubled by sleeplessness during his rare stays here; there was a certain sense of relief in that he was no longer lonely, but he thought he would be happy to find a friendlier face. Maybe Shiryu, or Saori; someone he could chat to for a moment, smile to, and go back upstairs with. Yes, that would be very nice — a quiet, silly little chat, a smile, and someone else's steps besides his as he climbed the stairs.

Saori seemed very surprised — and somewhat uncomfortable — to see him there. Her hands immediately girdled her long hair, dangling loose and unruly down her back, and he was afraid she wanted to be alone. Seiya stared at her for a moment trying to word an apology, not entirely sure what he was apologizing for; but she urged him to come closer and asked him what he was doing.

"I just came downstairs for a glass of water."

"Can't sleep?" she smiled.

"Woke up, actually. I had this dream, I think it woke me up."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Was it a bad dream?"

Seiya sighed. Yes, he thought. Yes, it was a bad dream, it was a terrible dream, a dream that seemed to have been chasing him ever since he was taken away from his dear sister and brought into this life. But those things were not supposed to be said out loud, so he just answered, "No."

Saori was quiet for a few seconds, and then said, "I had a bad dream too."

He sat down intrigued, unaware of himself. She didn't look at him, but instead turned her face to the window on the opposite wall; he stared at her blankly as she went on.

"I dreamt that we were children again, and that we were playing on the beach. Did we ever play together on the beach as children, Seiya?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, we did in my dream," she said, absorbedly. "It was very amusing. Do you remember how we used to be mean to each other then?"

He merely smiled, and said, "Things have changed."

"They've changed very much," she said, suddenly turning to him, and then looking away again. "But in my dream we got along very well, I think. And then—" her voice broke off (could she be sobbing?), and seemed contrived when she resumed: "And then a giant wave came."

Seiya was startled. He reached out for Saori, but flinched before actually touching her. She looked at him again, deep in his eyes, and he noticed how very sad, and very old, she suddenly appeared. The wind blew in from the living room, and she shivered slightly.

"It's cold."

"Here," he muffled out as he took off his shirt. "Take this." She had seen him bare-chested so often in fights that he didn't mind.

"You'll be cold," she objected.

He grinned. "I'm a saint."

She lifted one eyebrow maliciously, and Seiya wondered that she could shift so abruptly from goddess to mortal.

"You're hardly a saint."

He laughed, and she joined him while taking his offer, then pulled the shirt over her head. Her long violet strands were stifled beneath the collar, and she looked like a teenager — like the teenager that she was, it occurred to him. She struggled with them for a second, and he instinctively stretched his hand to help, then shivered when it brushed lightly against the nape of her neck.

"See, you're cold already."

"It's nothing."

They were quiet for another moment, as she looked out the window and he considered telling her about his dream. Her features seemed very delicate as she stood there in the dim light of the kitchen, his too-big T-shirt hanging clumsily from her narrow shoulders and her floral-scented hair floating aimlessly with the strokes of the breeze. He had grown accustomed to these moments now, the moments when he suddenly remembered that he loved her, and that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Everyone knew by now. Everyone knew that his eyes sparkled whenever she walked into the room, and that when she was endangered he fought for the woman rather than the deity; they knew that as well as they knew that it could not be. Sometimes he wondered what it would have been like, had he not been a saint, or she, not a goddess; had his obligation to protect her stemmed from a loving vow, rather than a dutiful oath; had she not had another 87 young men to lay her eyes upon. There were good days and bad days, he supposed. There were the good days, when he was happy to stand beside her and listen to her voice, and his respect and admiration for her were so great that it sufficed him to do his job as best he could and take nothing for himself but a kind word of gratitude. But then there were the bad days, when it seemed that the sight of her would tear him apart, and he had such a strong desire for the floral scent of her hair that he had to drive his nails into the palms of his hands to prevent himself from opening her bedroom door.

"We ran from the wave as fast as we could," she continued in a small voice, as if there had been no interruption. She sounded so vulnerable. "But it was so big, and we were so little..." He felt an expanding gush of heat within his chest, and impulsively took her hand. She did not respond, nor seem to mind. Seiya secured her small, milky-white fingers within his, and reckoned that tomorrow would be a very bad day indeed.

"It got closer and closer. You took me by the hand, you know. And at a certain point we weren't children anymore... we were—" "Us," he completed.

She looked at him, seemingly surprised. "Yes."

"I've had that dream too," he began, still holding her hand. "I've had it several times with variations here and there, but that's the core to all of them: you and me, running from a giant wave."

They were both silent once more. Seiya thought of his bed for a second, and then of her again. For a brief, brief moment, the two thoughts intersected, and his imaginary hands slowly removed his imaginary shirt from her imaginary body on his imaginary mattress— but he interrupted himself before there came a point of no return, and looked at her very seriously. She was looking at him too.

"It's what we do, isn't it?" he inquired, not expecting an answer. "We spend all our days running from a huge, enormous wave, and praying that we may come out of it alive."

She pondered for a minute and answered, "No, I wouldn't say so. We don't run, Seiya, we fight."

He felt an urge to pull her close to him and kiss her, to promise that he would always fight, to say he would have fought even if she was not the reincarnation of Athena, and he was not bound to fight by sacred bonds. But instead he looked at her hand, fastened within his on the table, and tried not to hold it too hard.

"Do you miss Japan?" she asked.

"Sometimes. I miss my sister very much; I miss the sea, too. It looks so different, back home."

She nodded, but said no more.

"Saori," he called, "I— I often wonder—" he stammered. She followed his words closely; he felt this was his only chance to ever be honest, to tell her everything, to let her know. This was it, he thought, the idyllic breeze blowing, her big blue eyes looking straight at his, her hand so warm and tender underneath his own. Perhaps it was all a dream, he thought. Perhaps this moment would be lost forever when the sun rose.

But still he could not find the right words.

"If you'd had a choice," he tried, but she straightened her shoulders and interrupted him firmly.

"Don't ask me that. It's not fair."

"Things are seldom fair around here," he sighed bitterly.

He looked down again, and his eye was caught by a drop falling on the table, right under her chin. She did not try to hide her teary eyes from Seiya; instead, she looked straight ahead at him, looking very serene an very brave, and intertwined her fingers with his.

"I think it's very unfair too."

Seiya bent forward, dropping to his knees, and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his head on her lap in a blend of passion and devotion; she laid one hand on his shoulder and began to gently stroke his hair and his bare back. The saint buried his face in her flesh and felt her tears falling on his head — this, this moment, was everything he had so longed for, from the first day they had met, from days now immemorial to him, from long before he knew her. This was the moment he had hoped and waited for, even after he realized that the promise of his happiness had been shattered, that promise woven in every human heart long before one has learned to feel.

A very long time seemed to have passed when she finally took his face between her hands to make him look at her; her eyes were again very sad, and very old. He made a motion to kiss her, but she stopped him with a look; he was still a saint, and she was still a goddess.

"We ought both to go to bed."

He would have given the world for that sentence to be meant differently; but it meant what it meant, and he agreed. He did not ask for his shirt back, and she did not attempt to return it; they both knew she never would. He stood tall, and walked up to the threshold.

"Aren't you coming?"

"In a minute."

"Can you please come now?"

His voice sounded so vulnerable, he thought. He felt so vulnerable. "I just don't want to walk back up alone."

Saori stood up and said that neither did she. So they climbed the stairs side by side without touching, silently trying to prolong the way, for they knew that the end of the stairs would also be the end of something else. For a second they were man and wife walking to bed together; at the top of the stairs Seiya had to consciously remind himself that he was to turn left, and not follow her into the opposite direction. They paused for a moment and stood there, gazes locked together, each quietly enduring his own share in their pain. He felt he ought to say what he had been meaning to: "Had things been different—", but she checked him again, leaning forward to kiss his cheek and whispering, "Me too."

He seized her neck as he seized the opportunity, and cleared his head of thoughts while she gave into the kiss. Their encounter was ephemeral and eternal; it was over before it had started, but it had neither started nor been over, simply existed through all of time. He knew this was not close enough. He knew they would never again be as close. She pulled away without words, looked at him once more, and turned around.

Seiya couldn't sleep that night. He was left to the unlikely cracks and shadows, to his ghosts, for all the many hours before dawn. Agony kept him awake, excitement prevented him from sleeping; he wanted to travel back in time, he was still kissing her at the top of the stairs; he was afraid to ever look at her again, he wanted to crawl into her bed and fall asleep to the smell of her hair. It had been — that which could never be, and would never be again. His yearning had finally been satisfied, and yet it seemed to be greater than ever.

This had been indeed the best of the good, and the worst of the bad, days.

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