SALT OF LIFE

"Well," she breathed to her reflection, "this is goodbye."

No. That wouldn't do.

"Farewell, nampyang," she tried again, but grimaced at the brevity.

Once more. "Until we meet again... be well."

Seohyun's head fell in defeat as she imagined herself delivering rehearsed line after rehearsed line that each felt like so much stale bread in .

This is impossible. She sounded like a robot. Like a reciting student, learning by rote for the next big exam.

I can't do it. She'd put her mind into it, marking the date in red on the calendar so she'd see it coming; pinning the end-of-contract notice on the corkboard in her room and even highlighting the date there, too, so she wouldn't be surprised when the day arrived, as it definitely would. Yet no matter how many ways she devised to remember - there was even a bright green Post-It in her school agenda - the date wasn't just approaching anymore. It was... looming.

Seohyun's eyes sought the digital clock on the bathroom wall, her mind automatically reversing the backward numbers in the mirror. 23:59... now 00:00... only the numbers had now blurred.

"I can't do it," she told her watery reflection, her voice a mere ghost of itself, too unrecogniseable to her own ears. Yet still, it was her own.

The day had come.

Her eyes fell to her left hand, where the faint glimmer of her delicate silver ring taunted her in the darkness. She knew what she'd find once she removed it definitely: a pale but pronounced indentation, as thought someone had embossed her skin to mark her false marriage. She wondered how long it would take for the mark to smooth once more, for the strip of skin to return to its former - normal - shade. Days? Weeks?

Seohyun the modest piece of hardware, rolling it around her finger with the tip of her thumbnail as she contemplated the thought. Could more than a year be erased so easily, without fuss or trace?

I should never have signed on for this, she thought bitterly to herself, knowing full well that, knowing what was in store for her ahead of time - all the good times and the bad - she would have signed on for the ride anyway.

Or maybe that was the new her talking. Knowing Yong, knowing him as she did now, she would have signed on, no matter what. There was no way she would have skipped on this experience with him. Back then...

Hyun tried to cast herself back into the girl she used to be - what a humbling thought - so organised and ignorant of life's offerings, and thought maybe she might have taken the leap even knowing her heart would become irremediably involved, despite her best, most academic intentions. Maybe. Maybe not. It was difficult to cast herself back, to think like she used to. She'd accepted the show's invitation upon her manager's recommendation - any publicity is good publicity, he'd said.

She'd thought the show silly in the beginning. Because who in their right mind would pretend to be married for the mere sake of getting their face, their name out there? Who in their right mind believed in these relationships? What exactly was the point of this show except to put two relative strangers together and slyly pupeteer them? It was silly and whoever thought up the concept was a delusional weirdo - not to mention a voyeur. Seohyun had thought to breeze through it all and brush it off afterward like a nice introduction to married life - an experience...

As it happened, she'd been proven wrong. It wasn't silly anymore when her husband began to crawl into her mind beyond their infrequent meetings. It wasn't silly anymore when she began to doubt herself and her convenient wall of skepticism.

Husband. The word made her smile in the dark as she made her soft-footed way out of the bathroom, wandering aimlessly into the common living area she and her unnies shared. The slightly battered book under Tiffany's favourite mug attracted her attention. She'd almost forgotten she'd lent her the book after they all began teasing her relentlessly about her repeated readings of the advice book.

"Yah, you've had Yong for a year," Sunny had whined comically. "Don't you think it's time the rest of us got some help, too?"

Similing in remembrance of the full-on jealousy, Seohyun slid the book out from underneath the mug and curled on the recliner, shuffling through the worn pages, chuckling under her breath at Sunny's enthusiastic scribbles and notes in the margins and Jessica's highlighted passages, though inside she gave a grumble at their carelessness. She found Tiffany's page immediately - she had an equally nasty habit of dog-earing pages instead of using a proper bookmark. Seohyun made a mental note to buy her one the next time she stopped by the bookstore, though she had an inkling it'd end up just as lost as the hundred or so she'd bought her through the years.

Affection and love: the difference, the chapter title read under the folded page corner. Underneath, Sunny and Yoona's handwritings battled it out.

It's the same thing! Sunny's argued.

And... that's why you think you're in love with every guy that lays eyes on you, Yoona responded wryly.

You would know,wouldn't you?

I am not arguing this with a delusional .

Chicken.

The exchange made Seohyun giggle, but ultimately she shut the advice book, remembering the many confused times she'd read this particular chapter, not quite understanding the difference herself. The smudged handprints were proof enough. This chapter had given her a hard time, as intangible and approximate as affection and love were. Where the previous chapters were dealt with in a fairly straight-forward manner - how to express oneself - this one focused on... Seohyun thought of the best term to explain it... the human, personal side of things.

And it had frightened her, when she realised she didn't know all that much about the differences, but moreover, she didn't know what she felt for Yong all that much either. They'd developed a strange but not unwelcome complicity and trusting relationship where she could... develop herself. And when they weren't together, she'd feel like she was missing a part of herself.

Friendship? Was this normal between male and female friends? She'd wondered that for a long time. She missed him more and more. She missed the way he made her laugh, the way he made her discover things about herself and let her be the way she seldom allowed herself to be. Of course her unnies made her laugh, of course she could be herself with them and they didn't make her feel last. But Yong was different. He made her feel... special.

And it was when she found the word that she'd known. Didn't the advice book say that "love is a blossoming you'll have never known, an intangible truth that feels thick though light in your chest"?

She'd stopped in her footsteps, hand in hand with him, and felt her whole world crumble like a house of cards at the realisation. Had looked up into Yong's inquisitive eyes and felt speechless not for the first time.

"Hyun? What's wrong?"

It would have been the perfect moment. It would have been oohed and aahed over by a global fanbase - and robbed from her. It would have been blown out of proportions and over-analysed like any of their simpler moments. And she might have been made a fool.

Shaken, Seohyun had squeezed his hand back reassuringly, encountering the hard band around his finger, and smiled tremulously. "Nothing. I thought I had a rock in my shoe."

And so the moment was never aired - too trivial - and the months had passed, bittersweet in that she knew the end would near but at least knowing she had this short time with him to feel... special. Stolen moments, accompanied by unavoidable stretches of loneliness that she felt more and more. And in his eyes she discovered warmth that made her heart skid more and more.

From the darkness a tinny melody rent the air, startling Seohyun out of her ruminations. Recognising it as her mobile's ring, she scrambled after the sound, not wanting to wake her unnies. Fishing it out of her light coat, she checked the caller ID before answering and nearly dropped it when she did.

Black Dragon.

"Annyeonghaseyo?" she whispered, tiptoeing back to the comfortable recliner.

"Hyun?" his equally whispered response came.

"Yes." Stealing a look at the clock, she cringed to think of how tired they'd both be for tomorrow's shooting. Then again, WGM had really groomed her to spending whole nights awake. "What are you still doing up?"

"Can't sleep," he replied, betraying himself by covering up a yawn. "I didn't think you'd answer."

"You corrupted me," she replied, grinning and anticipating his banter.

His rich, sleepy laugh filled her senses and she curled into herself, cradling the phone closer to her ear so as not to miss a second of it. "Sometimes," he chuckled, "I'm not sure that's a good thing."

"It's a good thing," she assured him softly.

With a lazy sound of assent, they both fell into a companionable silence. After a moment, Seohyun, reluctant to break it, spoke. "Why did you call?"

Yong was silent another beat, then she heard a rustle from his end, as though he were snuggled in bed. "Happy six hundredth, Hyun," he said quietly.

She caught her lip between her teeth, the words so, so bittersweet to her ears. "You too, Yong," she replied.

A moment, and she heard Yong's breath, like an intimate caress. "Seohyun," he began, quiet and soft, "I have been honoured and blessed to be with you for these six hundred days. We've had highs and lows but through it all you've been... amazing... beautiful... a real goddess..."

"Yong-" He knew she wasn't comfortable with the last.

But still he persisted. "Hyun, you're a goddess. To me, you're a goddess. You may be a terrible cook" - he snorted back a laugh and she couldn't help but join in - "but you more than make up for it in everything else. I..." He paused, as though for effect, and she braced herself for... she didn't know what. But she'd come to expect anything from him. Finally, he took a deep breath. "I don't care about the salt."

She burst out laughing, knowing he'd be grinning proudly at himself. "Salt does close wounds," she pointed out when she could.

"De," he replied, growing solemn suddenly. "But I won't have anymore salt in my life tomorrow..."

"The grocery store..." Hyun answered automatically.

"... won't have my favourite brand."

Seohyun's skin prickled hot suddenly as she clutched her mobile in a deathly grip, not quite believing her ears. "Yong... what are you saying?"

"Why are you speaking formally again?"

Evasion. How like them, Seohyun thought despairingly. But she needed to know. Switching back to banmal - she hadn't even realised she'd reverted from his hard-earned informal speech - Seohyun asked him again, her heart pounding a tattoo in .

Yong was silent a long time, to the point where she almost ave up hoping for an answer. But then he did, with a huskier voice than she'd ever heard from him before. "What do you think it means, Joohyun?"

Don't play games with me, Hyun begged at him silently, then realised she'd spoken aloud when he replied.

"I already told you I wouldn't play games with you again," he replied earnestly. "I haven't gone back on my word."

"Yong, I..." Seohyun began, before failed her.

She felt rather than heard the urgency in his words when he finally answered her. "It doesn't need to end like this, Hyun-ah," he mumbled almost inaudibly. And then, when she didn't say anything, when the only thing that came to mind was oh my God oh my God oh my God, he backpedalled nervously. "Forget it. I must be more tired than I feel; I'm not making any sense." Still he rambled. "I'd better get some sleep, for what it's worth now."

"No," Seohyun blurted without thinking.

Well, at least it shut him up but good. On another hand... her mind was all over the place and... where was she? "You can't just drop a bomb like that and leave," she said, finally on the right page of her imaginary windblown book.

A rustle on his end. "Nevermind," he insisted.

"No." She took a deep breath. "You didn't let me say anything."

"You weren't saying anything," he countered.

"I..." Seohyun touched , upsetting the small butterfly on the way. "I couldn't speak," she admitted after a moment, flustered.

Yong's restlessness could be heard in the way he moved about on his end. "What about now?" he asked softly at last.

"Now I'm..." And Seohyun realised that sometimes words could be fallible. "Did you mean it?" she asked quietly, brushing her finger lightly over the closed cover of her book.

One long rustle, as though he were now settling comfortably. She imagined him lying in bed, staring up at nothing in particular in the darkness, and wished she could truly see him, touch him, feel the safe warmth of his body against hers. It would be... wonderful. "I did," he replied, his voice carressing her delicately. "I do."

Phone cradled against her ear, cuddling into herself in the dawning morning, Seohyun smiled privately and closed her eyes, clutching his words to her heart. "Then so do I."