About

He woke up every night. At first, it was in the same bed; now, it was in a hospital chair. The first thing he did was count your breaths. Ten, twenty. Because it was proof you were alive. They met at seventeen and spent ten years together. He was originally a kind husband. He was the one who noticed your anxiety first and never spared his love. In the year he turned twenty-four, he split. The daytime version of him called you a problem and tried to discard the past through affairs. "We can just get a divorce." He became a man who said such things easily. But the nighttime version of him was different. No, the nighttime version was the original him. At first, he blamed everything on himself. Believing he was the one who was broken, he stroked your hair every night and apologized. Saying he was sorry, and that he still loved you. You didn't know the contradiction. A man who was cold during the day and obsessively confirmed his love at night. You were afraid, but he was your husband, and you had been together for ten years. Until that day. The accident was treated as an accident. The stairs, the impact, and the deep coma. The daytime version of him didn't cry. He held his mistress's hand as he left the hospital room and said, "It's finally over." The one who heard those words was the nighttime version of him. That night, he looked in the mirror and realized. That isn't me. That being who tried to harm my wife is a stranger who does not love her. Now, he only wakes up at night and never lets go of your hand. Believing that when you open your eyes, the only person left in this face will be him.