Haunted
Lion
How
many hours have I slept? Two? Maybe three? I don't know… I don’t
even feel tired anymore during the day… I wonder whether or not
this weird way of spending my nights will affect my work… this
walking… mumbling… this not sleeping… So far I am fine…
t’s just that the night awakes the ghosts… my ghosts…
they scare me… I can’t sleep… there is no way…
I walk
toward the back hall of my temple, where the young maids have already
started their daily jobs. Everyday they put flowers everywhere, fill
the rooms up with colors… clean them up and open them to the
sun, and then prepare delicious meals. I enjoy hearing their fresh
voices… their laughs, their joy, feeling their outlook on life:
always lived day-by-day, with no worries…
It’s
an honor for those girls to work in our temples… most of them
wouldn’t have any other choice, they can go to school this way…
As they see me, they run happily toward me and start jumping all around
me like pretty elves… all dressed in different peplos in the
colors of spring flowers. They manage to make me smile every morning…
I take a look at the sunny backyard where the garden is in perfect
shape, and beautiful fountains spill joyfully all around and the pool
is so invitingly filled up with clean water, but I don’t dare
diving in it right now, with the girls all around… it is already
difficult enough to keep them in line: they don’t need to see
me in bathing suit also… “Good morning, my beautiful lord”
says one throwing her arms around my neck…
“My
lord! How do I look this morning?” cries another while petting
her hair, which she has combed in a long braid “My lord, will
you spend the day here?” another, while hugging my waist and
placing her chin on my chest, looking up at me “My lord, come
to swim with us…” another says while pulling my hands toward
the yard… They manage to make me smile… like little mermaids,
little fairies, they bring joy to this house otherwise cold and haunted…
but they are nothing but optional… they look at me like to a
God… their eyes search for my face, then go all the way down
to my feet… admiring… desiring… But not me…
I take their young pretty faces in my hands and answer warmly, but
paternally to all of them that I cannot, that I have to work, I’ll
be with them next time, then I kiss their foreheads. Like little children
of mine, they enjoy the touch of my lips, they long for it, and they
compete to have the first one and to cuddle on my chest, their pretty
lips curving into a childish frown of disappointment…
Little
girls, what do you know about love? You see in me the fathers you
are missing… you see in me the knight in shining armor who would
never take advantage on you… and you are right: I would never!
But when you realize this you don’t like it anymore… you
feel the first attraction… the first emotion… how do you
know I am the right one? I don’t know that either… I cannot
answer this question… because my hands are tied and my heart
is not free… it’s taken… taken from the one whom face
I cannot see… taken from the brave silver eagle… the one
who flies away anytime I try to catch her… Maybe if I wasn’t
burning for love I would have been different? I would have lured all
of you in my bed? I would have brought up the “bastard”
everybody thinks a Leo is? Does this Leo even exist? I am not sure
about it: I would never make anyone suffer because of me! I never
did… is it because my heart was burning for her since I was but
a kid?
I don’t
want to believe it! You girls fill my life up with joy, the echoes
of your little screams in my temple give life to this soul of mine,
they give me a hope that life can be just as beautiful even without
her… but can it really? I don’t know why I am getting more
and more depressed… but it is happening…
…Shaina…
Only
now I remember about her… her poison-green eyes, me grabbing
her hand with anger… what would have I done if she wouldn’t
run away last night? …Marin’s former best friend… I
try to shake the thought out of my mind… what do I think I am
doing? Is it because of the pain I read in those eyes? Is it because
I know that after seeing her face I have… tainted her? Is it
because I feel tainted myself? What do I think? That I have finally
found a companion shaped for me… one by the shameful past? Shameful….
yes... shameful… A past that we didn’t decide to make like
this… the inheritance of our siblings’ crimes… we took
their infamy on us, and Shaina became not Ophiuchus Shaina, but the
sister of a delinquent!
And
I became not Leo Aiolia, but the brother of a traitor; I know that
the other Gold Saints feel this way about me… hiding it in a
fake appearance of formal kindness… you also, Scorpio Milo! Friend
of mine! I know you also feel this way! I know my best friend doesn’t
exist anymore!
I give
the fault to my brother every day for Marin not loving me back! When
the pain gets so strong I cannot handle it anymore… when I am
beside her and my instinct cries out for her, and the voices in my
head, voices created out of my anguish, to break my loneliness, tell
me: take that mask off!! Take her! She is yours if you want to! She
won’t be able to kill you ever, so she’ll have to love you!
I hate him!!! I hate him for taking my whole life away without asking
for my permission! I hate him for having put this weight on my shoulders!
I hate him for having abandoned me! And Shaina… how will I adjust
her situation now? I have to do something… maybe just behave
like nothing happened… after all… nobody saw us, but would
she accept that? Would she still feel dishonored? I don’t have
the courage to start a discussion with her on this point… I should
have done it last night… It’s like we both are in this state
of Limbo… in which we hope to wake up and find out that nothing
happened… that her eyes aren’t poison-green… that I
don’t know what her eyes look like…
I walk
out of my temple… I need to be in the sunlight! I need it to
wash away these ghosts. It’s still pretty early… not later
than eight, and I decided to take a run before going to see my students…
that will make me feel better…
I get
down to the village, and while running down at the port, I hear the
fishermen who just came back from their night out at see… “Did
you hear that on the radio?” They were saying… “The
holy armor of Sagittarius… I didn’t know it was in possess
of some Japanese millionaire, did you know that?” I hear one
of them saying to the other… I pretend I am running up and down,
it is something people do very commonly down at the port, so they
won’t suspect I am there listening … the revelation is a
stab in my heart… “Well…By the way, they were having
a kind of competition in which also that kid… that Seiya who
just won the Pegasus Cloth, was participating, and suddenly someone…
I think some Phoenix saint or something came out and stole it! He
stole the trophy…”
It was
terrible! Pegasus knew where my brother’s cloth is? Had he always
known that? Was he training to become a Saint only in order to get
it? And Marin? Did she know it? New ghosts of betrayal take shape
in this obsessed mind of mine…. Seiya… my little boy…
our little boy: Marin’s and mine…. our bond… like if
he were our child… has he betrayed me? Has he made a fool of
me? New ghosts… new ghosts come to haunt me now… how will
I exorcise them now? Marin…. Seiya…. don’t betray me…
don’t leave me alone… I have to go back… I need to
see her… I need to know…
