AN: This short piece was inspired by the song <하루의 끝 (End of a day)>. You should give it a listen while you read.

Enjoy.

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2:33 AM. The LED numbers bounced from wall to wall, engulfing the room in faint neon green. You counted the seconds until it changed again, 2:34 AM. 

The sound of the water ceased as you turned to your side, your eyes now locked on the bathroom door. A twist of the knob and the emerging steam carried a silhouette out of the doorway and straight to you. He combed his fingers through his hair and threw the wet towel onto the floor as he climbed into bed next to you. His shorts matched the grey of the sheets.

In the four years that you've known him, he was always very punctual. It was his job that did that to him. He always needed to be somewhere at a certain time, so he had grown familiar with seconds and minutes and hours. His days always started not a second short of 6:00 AM and he never failed to slide into bed at any other time but 2:34 AM.

In the four years that you got to know him, you also learned that sleep was his greatest enemy. He was engaged in a constant battle between exhaustion and creativity. His early mornings and late nights would eventually catch up to him, bringing in waves of tiredness throughout the day. If time was willing he'd nap briefly on chairs in waiting rooms between schedules, if not he'd work off his sleepiness with the meetings of pens on paper. To anyone, the war within him would seem grueling, but he had grown accustomed to it, so much so that it wasn't much of a fight at all. He always chose artistry over exhaustion, and even when sleep would crawl up and settle in he would still dream, his mind continuing to create even though his body was still.

Once in bed his fingers found the sheets and he swiftly pulled them up to his chin, retreating into the warmth that the comforter provided. He lay on his back, eyes closed, breathing heavily as if he's just emerged from a swim in the sea of blankets. After a couple minutes of silence, in which you thought he had finally surrendered to the night, his eyes slowly opened once again and he turned his head to look at you. Now that he was inches away from your eyes you could physically see the toll the sleepless nights had taken on him. The shower had washed away all the concealer he was forced to put on. The makeup dried out his skin, and he had to pile it on in order to disguise the unmistakable dark circles. His job entailed the need of attraction. He was a businessman after all, and how could he sell anything with shadows embedded into his skin? 

"I know what you're thinking." He turned to his side now, coming face to face with you. His eyes held yours while he talked and once his voice stopped he closed them again.

It had been a long day, for both you and him. He left as soon as he was finished getting dressed, which was exactly at 6:30AM, and hadn't come home till barely an hour ago. Your day started at 8AM and you reached home at 7 in the evening. You had called him before dinner, but when he answered you could tell he was busy. A brief phone call of "hello", "have you eaten", and "I love you too" lead to you sitting on the sofa eating take out alone. You didn't know how to cook for anything less than two people, so when he wasn't home, which was most of the time, you had food delivered to you. At 11 you decided it was time to shower and get ready for bed, leaving the light in the kitchen on so when he got home, he would know you were there. He also wasn't the best at moving around in the dark, so the kitchen light served as a way to illuminate the surrounding room in order for him to make his way into the bedroom easily. Often times you would slip into sleep before he arrived home, only to be woken by him moving into the bed, but tonight you couldn't sleep without him laying next to you. When you heard him stumble through the door to the room and into the bathroom, you tried even harder to sleep knowing that seeing you awake would make him feel guilty, it would make him think that you waited up for him. 

"It's hard for you." You placed a hand on his cheek and he placed his on top of yours, leaning into your warmth. 

"It's harder for you, always worrying about me." He removed your hand from his cheek and placed in on his chest, allowing your fingers to feel the beat of his heart underneath them.

Closing your eyes, you counted the beats. The rise and fall of his chest matched the beating of his heart and soon you found yourself growing sleepy. He pulled you closer to him, resting his chin on the top of your head. "I love you."

He could feel your steady breath on his chest, you had finally fallen asleep. Holding you in his arms he was overcome with a sense of calmness. Having you to come home to at the end of a weary day, being able to hold you in his arms like this every night, being able to feel your breath and see your eyelids flutter from time to time, was enough rest for him. Although he hardly slept, seeing you sleep next to him gave him the energy he needed to pull through another day. He would pull through anything just to be able to come home back to you.