“Are you sure you can help me fall asleep?”

Xiao frowned, his steps, muffled by a pair of light cyan slippers with small bird motifs, echoed through the now empty hallway of the dorms. At your continued silence, he clutched his pillow closer to his chest. It would be absolutely useless if you started casting spells, but perhaps a well-aimed throw would distract you long enough for him to escape.

Contemplating his escape plans, Xiao felt the familiar want to yawn. His mouth fell open at the feeling, powerless to stop and the sound escaped, drawing the pull of sleep around him like a familiar blanket. Yet, as much as he wanted to accept the beckoning of sleep, his body remained awake.

It wasn’t a secret to anyone in the Academy that Xiao struggled with insomnia. From the very first day of class, Xiao’s eye bags were a permanent feature of his face. If that wasn’t a dead giveaway of his horrendous insomnia, the frequency at which he passed out in class left no room for doubt.

When he did pass out, it was never consistent. He could be asleep for minutes, or hours at a time, once when he had been awake for far too long, a full day. What remained the same, however, was that he was dead to the world when it happened.

From spells to nonmagical methods, Xiao tried everything.

A warm cup of milk before bed turned into an entire makeshift breakfast in the dead of night.

A wind bubble spell that blocked out all sound caused him to miss class as he focused on work while waiting for sleep to take him.

He even bought an eyemask made of a baku’s wool from a shady magic tools vendor only to see it knock out his classmates immediately but do nothing for him.

With each method he tried, Xiao’s grown used to being awake for hours each night. When he’s not busy trying out new methods of falling asleep, he’s working on his schoolwork until the world is awake to keep him company again. On some nights, when his head hurt too much for anything, he would lie awake, staring at the ceiling as he begged for sleep to come.

This particular night was one of those nights, and Xiao had been lying in bed, preparing himself for another night of tossing and turning before you suddenly showed up at his door, claiming you had a solution to his insomnia.

Delirious from a lack of sleep, Xiao was halfway to your dorm when his brain caught up with the rest of his body. Now here he was, wandless and dressed in a set of dark teal pajamas.

But really, at this point, what else could he try? He was at his wit’s end. If you claimed that you had a cure, even if it was a lie, he was ready to try anything to get a consistent sleep schedule.

Finally arriving in front of your door, Xiao took a deep breath, steeling himself before stepping inside.