When everything slowed down and the world was dark, Astral found that he could relax. Daytime brought stress and curiosity and wonder and bewilderment. Nighttime was different.

Nighttime meant sleep, and even though Astral never felt the need, it was still calming to his mind that Yuma did. That he could sleep and, for an approximate eight to nine hours, forget the world and all of his problems even existed.

Observation #34: Yuma is serene when in the nighttime part of his daily cycle.

Serenity was an odd thing for him to see in the young boy's face. Usually it was excitement or annoyance or happiness. With his sister, he'd be exasperated, his grandmother, loving, Kotori, friendly, Tetsuo, competitive... The list went on and on. But here, sleeping in his hammock, he looked peaceful, neutral, calm.

One might have called his interest in this human cycle of sleep a kind of perverse fascination. That is, if anyone but Yuma could see what he did night after night, or see him at all for that matter. And Yuma was asleep, so he didn't see anything either.

ESPer Robin ended hours and hours ago, the screen turning to infomercials, something Yuma had once explained to him as overly-cheerful people who pretended something was awesome in order to get the person watching to buy it. He claimed it was a lame advertising thing and that Astral shouldn't pay attention to them. Or pay anything at all, for that matter. Not that Astral could.

Astral hovered parallel to his keeper, only mere inches above him, staring down at his chest that rose and fell with his slow breath. He wondered if it was hot or cold air that would be blowing out of Yuma's slightly parted lips. He cursed his transparency as his hands literally ghosted over the young boy's face.

The clock read 5:34AM. Yuma would be awake soon. In an hour or two, depending on how late he decided to sleep in and whether he even set his alarm. Astral contemplated waking him up himself, but he didn't want to interrupt whatever dream Yuma might be having. Dreams, according to Yuma, were like movies that happened in your imagination while you slept. Astral wondered what that was like, but since he never had the need to sleep, he contented himself with asking Yuma about his dreams instead.

The sun was slowly rising, rays hitting the window and making Yuma's eyes scrunch up as he precariously rolled over onto his side. Astral thought it was a feat that the only time he fell off that contraption of rope was when he was actually trying to get out of it. Of course, just as he thought that, Yuma broke the tradition.

"Gah!"

"Yuma... are you okay?" Astral asked, with the same indifferent tone as always.

"Uh, yeah, no brain damage, I should be good!" he said in a nervous high-pitch as he tried to laugh off his blunder.

Astral only raised his non-existent eyebrow at him and nodded.

"I guess there's no point in going back to sleep now, eh, Astral?

"No, I guess not."

Now to witness the other 15 hours of Yuma's shenanigans before the peace would be back along with nightfall.

Author's Note: I had fun writing this, so I hope you all had fun reading this! My first stab at ZEXAL fanfiction, hope I didn't fail~

astrya02