A pale yellow was the color of the lights shining down on Alan's math paper, his hands were occupied with holding the pencil and holding his paper down so that he could get accurate marks on the paper. The soft and dull sounds of pencil on paper were half canceled out by the sound of nighttime is coming into the room, the scent making him want to go outside but he knew that it was already night and he also was too tired to get up from his chair and do anything else but study, he had set his alarm for 10:00 but here he was already nearing 11:00 like he had done all those nights before. His teacher always assigned a ridiculous amount of homework and yet here he was with full knowledge that it was going to be impossible; an unstoppable force that was his mind trying to get past the unstoppable wall that was his homework pile. The math problems flowed like waves crashing onto a sandy shore, and the crackling of wind against his curtains made him at peace, but he couldn't help but have this underground feeling of stress buried beneath it all. When Brain finally looked back to his paper he realized that he had finished the paper minutes ago and his body and hands went into autopilot and started doodling random math equations that his brain could remember instead of swapping the papers as a normal person would. Brain always noticed that about himself, sometimes when he would enter that natural flow state of studying his body would go into autopilot and instead of going to the next assignment he would still have the paper and instead he would just start doodling math equations that he remembered, usually the same ones and it confused and amazed his teacher to no end on how someone would just do that on their paper.

Brain finally remembered that he had an important essay due by the end of the week and as soon as he snapped out of his haze and got proper control of his hands again he started to work on the document that was sitting there for hours after he started working, the sounds of his keyboard always calmed him to an extent, the clicks of the keyboard were satisfying but he realized that they were starting to slowly make him tired which was weird since it would either annoy him since he wanted to be as quiet as possible or they would make amazing background noise but now he was growing tired, his yawning came in an almost constant rhythm. It took a couple of minutes for Brain to realize how tired he had gotten from doing all that work especially late at night. The academic liked doing assignments as they always calmed him down after rough days at school and he could almost take his anger out on his assignments if he tried long enough.

But now it did nothing but exhaust him, which would usually be nice becuase then it would be a free source of melatonin without trying, but now it was annoying him because he needed to get assignments done, not to sleep. I wonder why there isn't some sort of caffine for kids that would really be helpful right now Brain thought to himself as he continued typing. The typing sounds were slowly lulling him to sleep and his eyes drooped down and only with Brain's self awarness snapping him out of this tired haze that was slowly getting more and more common his expression became emotionless and tired, his eyes weren't completely open and his flourencent light that was being shined in his face was starting to slowly annoy him with how bright it was but he could barely see anything without the brigtness being up so high and he was too tired to do anything but type and hope that something would wake him up let alone go to bed and turn off his computer. He closed his eyes for longer and longer periods of times but would always catch himself falling asleep despite being completely concious during the whole ordeal out of fear of falling asleep. The reality of his situation was slowly setiting in for Brain, he either needed to fall asleep at some point or practice taking small naps or sneak downstairs and get the smallest cup pour in a tiny amount of coffee, put some milk stir in a little flavoring to take away from the bitterness of the coffee, and drink it. Brain let the ideas run around in his mind and he pondered the possibilites of going through with each, falling asleep would mean that he would not be able to get work done let alone wake up early, and taking a small nap could lead to him falling asleep since he was horrible at waking up to alarms unless his parents manually woke him up which they wouldn't anyway since they already thought that he was asleep since 9:00 PM, or worse, he would wake up at some ungodly hour like midnight or even worse 2:00 AM and not be able to sleep and then pay the price by falling asleep in class or being tired for the whole day but magically being awake until 10:00 PM, and despite the coffee option sounding completely irrational, he pondered it the most because it would give him a rush that would allow him to finish his work and then make him fall asleep like that, but there was always the possibility of the rush lasting too long and he would up into the late hours of the night and then wake up at 10:00 Am regretting all of his life decisions, he decided to take a nap since it had the best outcome despite having the worst risk, he turned the brighness down on his computer to sleep, searched up some nice ambient noises, and shut his eyes like he should have over an hour ago. But a quick rest of his eyes turned into a full fledged nap which went from minutes to eventually hours without Brain ever realizing.

Fern had always noticed Alan's drained eyes and tired demeanor. All of the little things that always made her wonder, maybe it was his groggy and wobbly tone that made anyone around him think that he had just woken up from a nap, or his disheveled appearance. It might have been his tendency to lazily write on the chalkboard with barely legible writing and somehow getting the answer right, him always sneaking off presumably to take some nap. Or maybe it was his dicey habits like his eyes closing for a little too long or his constant dazed state, or maybe his careless and uncertain habit of falling asleep in class with no care of who happened to witniss him even if it was the teacher, whoever witnessed his attempt to revive the energy that was deprecated and deprived from him due to his lack of slumber; his defeciancy of eight hours. Something about him just radiated this sense of tiredness, his yawning implying that he had stayed up later than his parents probably allowed. And Fern had drove herself hysterical trying to sleep through her burning sense of curiosity, her mind was racing a marathon of all the possibilities and all the questions that she had. The bed creaked slightly with every toss and turn and it didn't help her sense of hopelessness, and frustration. The obvious answer was just to make herself sleep and then ask him at school but there was no way that she would be able to sleep unless she had her answer. But she didn't want to pull anything too crazy yet. So Fern doing what was the next best choice was to pull out her phone and dial Alan's house number, she had overheard him giving out his number to George. So she elicited her memory and managed to recall the exact numbers. The first ring went by, ok he probably just didn't notice because he was so busy or maybe he's not near the phone right now fern thought to herself. The second ring went by and she was a little concerned, and then the third went buy and she went to voicemail. Fern immediately hung up the phone and she put her phone down, she had to think of other ways to get rid of this problem at least until she could talk to him at school. That's when she thought up of something so irrational and absurd that it might just work.

The sound of cars passing by reminded fern of where she was, outside with the cool current of the breeze brushing against her skin. The street lamps were on now and they illuminated in shades of yellow and white, and the light reflected down onto Fern. She was becoming more and more hesitant by the second, she wanted to call Alan again just so that she wouldn't have to do this but it was probably going to be of no use. Either he had miraculously gone to bed or he just wasn't answering the phone at the moment. Fern had no reason in her brain to think that he had miraculously went to bed. Her hesitance grew with every step she took closer to the house, and she was starting to question just what she was getting herself into as she walked up the steps to Alan's house. She contemplated running away and forgetting that none of this had ever happened and go back to bed and try to sleep, but she had already walked all this way and if it wasn't now it was never.

Fern knocked on the door once, the sound of her knocking was hollow, almost sounding like she was knocking on an empty box. There was no response so she had knocked another time just to make sure that they knew that she was at their door. No response from that knock either, are they ignoring me or did they just not hear me knocking at their door? Fern thought to herself, she was nervous but she gave the door a final knock and this time she heard the sweet sound of a woman "Give me just a minute i'll be there!" Finally, someone in this house heard me knocking Fern breathed a sigh of relief, finally someone had answered her. Within seconds she saw the door open and she stepped back a little so that she wouldn't be hit with the door.

A confused and tired face appeared before fern, she was surprised to see how kind Alan's mom looked despite all of this. "Hello, may I help you?" Mrs. Powers said.

"I was hoping that I could talk to your son Alan, he hasn't been answering my calls and I'm a little worried,"

"Why are you worried? Has he been acting weird at school lately, i know he tends to be a little quirky but now you have me a little concerned,"

"Well, I've noticed that he's been constantly tired at school and he even falls asleep in class, and I wanted to ask him about how he's been sleeping but he didn't answer either of my calls and the question hasn't been letting me sleep,"

"Do you happen to be friends with him?"

"We share a similar friend group, we've interacted a few times,"

"Ok, well I'll tell him that you're here and you can wait here while I do that it won't be long,"

From fern's limited view of the house she could see that it was two stories high, and there was a staircase leading to the second floor, the man, who she could only assume was Alan's dad was sipping a drink from his mug, she could only think that the two just so happened to be chatting before she had gotten there.

Within a few minutes Mrs. Powers came back but this time she looked concerned

"He hasn't answered the door, can you maybe check up on him since you're one of his friends maybe he isn't answering because he doesn't want me to come in,"

"Ok, I'll do it but I can assure you he probably would let you in, maybe he's just sleeping,"

Fern went inside the house as was requested by Mrs. Powers and she briefly said hello to his father and she tiptoed up the staircase, she was surprised at how luxurious the house was, of course it wasn't anything near muffy's house but the staircase was surprisingly fancy, she finally made it up to the second level of the house and Fern genuinely thought that she would not be able to tell where Alan's room was but she was immediately able to spot the room out due to the fact that it stuck out like a sore thumb with the Albert Einstein poster on the door, as a common curtecy, she hesitated to just bust through the door asking what was going on with Alan's sleep schedule so to not disturb him during say a science experiment she knocked on the door, after the first knock she hear nothing but just to make sure that he heard, she knocked a second time. Again there was no response and she was starting to see a pattern with him not responding to her, but this time Alan didn't know that it was her so what was going on? She knocked on the door a final time and again there was no answer, so just to make sure for a final time that Alan got the memo that she was going to come in just in case he was doing something important she said in her most confident voice, "Ok I'm coming in!" she was surprised that she could talk that loud, of course it wasn't loud enough to boom through the whole house but she could only hope that it was loud enough for him to hear. Fern was surprised that Alan had not locked the door but it was most likely just a house rule so she brushed it off, the door opened with a creak and when she went through the door the first thing that she saw besides the view of his room and the moonlight reflecting onto his carpet was

the brain laying head down on the table with an open computer in front of him. The laptop was shining a fluorescent light onto the brain's head, and a light yellow light illuminated what she could only think were multiple papers and homework assignments. The lack of sleep must have finally gotten to him Fern thought to herself, at first she was hesitant to even do anything as she didn't want to disturb him and instead she could just go downstairs and tell his mom that he must have fallen asleep doing assignments but she thought that it would be better instead to try and wake him up just to ask him because she didn't drive herself mad trying to sleep just to not even ask him the question that she had been wanting to ask him all night and all day. She took light steps towards him and she hesitated once she was right in front of him, but after a few seconds of pondering her life choices she finally got the courage t do something.

She lightly tapped his shoulder to try and wake him up, then lightly shook him awake, but to no avail. Hence, Fern did what she thought was a sort of last-ditch effort to tell him what she wanted to ask, so she took one of the blank papers on his desk and checked to make sure it wasn't some assignment he didn't done yet and wrote her question. Still, then she stopped and erased what was originally her question and instead wrote a much more caring and kind message, she had thought of it up on the spot and her writing was a bit messy but that didn't really matter, the message mattered above all else. "Take some breaks every once in a while, you deserve it just as much as the next person, take care of yourself -fern" she gave him a quick pat on the shoulder and headed off on her way home.

She was surprised to get a glimpse into brain's life the way she did, and she was always curious about how he managed to do all of that work and still get a good night's sleep, it turns out he did do all of his assignments, but the latter, not so much.

She headed down the stairs to see Mrs. and Mr. Powers talking over some late-night matcha tea and milk, and she was initially nervous to tell them what she had encountered in Brain's room but felt it was the right thing to do.

Fern first handed back the key and put it down on the table, which caught the attention of both of Brain's parents. She spoke with a genuine voice.

"Hey, I saw that Alan had been sleeping on his desk, and I tried to wake him up, but he didn't, so I think he's asleep; I think he fell asleep doing studying and homework,"

"Oh, he fell asleep doing homework again; I'll go tuck him into bed; thank you for reminding me," Mr. Powers said.

Fern tried to hide her shock at how casually the parents were treating their kid falling asleep doing work, but she couldn't let it show, not at least until she got back home. Again!? Fern thought to herself. She had wave the parents goodbye and she headed out the door feeling weird.

As she walked home a little wiser from the situation, she couldn't help but almost feel sorry for the Brain because imagining having to do that for months on end gave her a bad feeling but also a fantastic idea for poetry. She could only hope that Brain saw the letter and remembered it.

Alan awoke in his bed to see that he had been up early. He put on his clothes, but as he was about to go out the door and go downstairs, he saw something on his desk that Brain did not remember putting last night, a paper with writing on it; only when Brain grabbed it to read what Fern had wrote did he see the message. And he read it aloud: "Take some breaks every once in a while, you deserve it just as much as the next person, take care of yourself -fern" fern? why did I get a letter from fern? Alan thought to himself, shocked. He tried to remember when he had fallen asleep doing that would warrant this type of note since the boy woke up in his bed, but one thing that Brain knew for sure was that he was going to ask fern if she was the one who wrote him that letter, and if so, why? He tried to rationalize what she could have done to somehow get that note into his room, the possibility were endless maybe she had mailed it to him and his mom happened to find it, but when he had fallen asleep it was late at night and he was usually the last one to fall asleep in the family. Maybe she had gotten to his front door and told his dad to give the note to him, but the note looked like it had been written on the spot, and he did remember someone trying to wake him up in his dream, but the possibility of fern having been in his room was too rediculous to ever be true even in a world as weird as his.

Everything seemed to fly by as the note stayed in his hand, and the question lingered in his mind and repeated itself repeatedly. As Brain rushed out the door and into the cloudy day, all he could do was hope that recess would come as soon as he blinked so that he could get the question out of his mind. The cold air reminded him of his current reality and he couldn't believe that he had gone to sleep what he could only assume was early for his standards and somehow managed to wake up late, but it could have been because of the sleep deprivation, all that Alan knew was that the time before recess was going to be grueling to try and get through.

The class went as usual, but the brain seemed to almost zone out at any chance possible so that he could try and ponder answers to the question in his mind. Of course, he still got the answers right with little effort, but the class seemed meaningless without this answer. He could see the fog on the windows which to him was most likely going to be the only thing interesting about this class. Still, of course, the last thing he could do was randomly stand up, go to the other side of the class, and ask fern himself; there was no group project that would allow that, and Mr. Ratburn had not allowed them free time so his question; that would have to wait until recess; the minutes ticked by like hours, but finally, at last, was recess. When the bell rang, Alan had to fight the urge to jump up for joy and start doing a silly celebratory dance in the middle of the classroom.

When Alan had made it to Recess he walked out of the classroom and to the playground and he was scanning the playground and everywhere in between to see where Fern was, and that was when he found her. The brain could see in the distance that Fern was sitting all alone for once, and it was odd because she was usually with her friends or writing poetry somewhere, so why was she sitting all alone? The question seemed to glue him to where he was and also glued his eyes to Fern as he zoned out. The brain was so busy unknowingly staring at Fern that he didn't even realize that Arthur had just come up behind him. When Arthur had gone behind him and Alan felt his hands around his shoulders he already knew that he was in for a ride.

"Hey, Brain," those two words nearly made him jump as he realized he had zoned out so far that Brain had forgotten about almost everything and everyone around him; he was slightly annoyed at Arthur for coming up behind him like that. Still, he couldn't stay mad as he didn't know that Brain's mind focused on asking Fern why she had left a note in his room, and such a kind note. And it wasn't like Arthur knew that he was staring at fern because she might have went in his room or tried to wake him up the previous night.

"Were you just staring at Fern right now?" Arthur asked teasingly, Alan already knew that Arthur was saying that to try and make him think that he had feelings for Fern which was the last thing that he had considering that he couldn't feel anything besides confusion toward her and despite his look being more of a confused stare than a longing stare. Still, of course, someone like Arthur wouldn't know that, nor would any of the kids know that because staring must mean you like them, right?

"Are you serious? I mean, I knew that you didn't necessarily have the best taste in things since you always focus on things that are "intellectual," whatever that's supposed to mean, but just because fern can use big words doesn't mean she's all that," Francine said almost bitterly. Brain looked behind himself and saw Francine staring at him with an almost jealous look in her eyes, but he was bad at reading faces so it might have been more of a mad or taunting look in general. Also he was surprised that she was so quick to make assumptions considering that the two were friends.

"I know she can use big words in her poetry and stories, and I admire that she uses them correctly, but that doesn't mean I like her. I just zoned out, you know,"

"Oh yeah, I bet you can't talk to her because you'll be too nervous," said Muffy

"Ok, I'll go talk to her, and I have a question to ask her, so this will be easy as reciting the digits of pi," Brain said, putting on a crucial face.

He walked over to fern, his expression softening, he was aware that his friends were watching him, but he tried to ignore it. Fern looked up from her notebook and saw Alan looking at her.

"Hey," Fern said

"Hi, can I ask you something?" The brain was nervous that he would come off as aggressive, so he tried to make his tone upbeat and curious. However, she didn't seem too worried, so Brain felt he was in the clear.

"Ask away," Fern replied

"So I woke up in my bed, and after I got ready, I saw that you or someone who signed with your name left me a note, I read the note, and it's kind, so if it is you, thank you so much but I just wanted to know is it you and if so, how did you get into my room?"

Fern looked nervous; within a minute, Alan had figured out she had been in his room and had written the letter. How did he find out?

Fern was stumbling over her words as Alan held the note.

"So, uh, I sort of went to your house at around 10:30 last night because I kept on thinking about this one question I had which was why would you study so much and do all of Mr. Ratburn's assignments willingly if it led you to fall asleep in class." "And ironically, it didn't let me sleep, and I asked your mom if I could come in so that I could ask you something, but after knocking and announcing I would come in just in case you were doing something and you didn't answer, I went in, and you were asleep, and I almost wrote my question on the paper but I just instead wrote a kind message since I thought you probably needed to see it,"

The brain was taken aback by her kind words and explanation; he had never had someone be that kind to him before, let alone have such a caring and genuine answer. His shock must have shown on his face because Fern looked slightly concerned.

"I've never had someone do that for me before, uh, thank you so much for the note, I know that this might sound silly, but I've never had someone remind me to take a break for once from my endless working," Alan said with a small smile creeping up upon him.

"You're very welcome. Also, I did mean everything that I said in that letter; I do genuinely want you to take care of yourself; I've personally fallen victim to staying up late hours of the night writing stories, but to be able to function properly, you need to have a good sleep schedule, especially on school nights because the fun fact it only takes around 2-4 days to mess up a sleep schedule," Fern said.

The brain was even more so shocked by her use of an accurate fact. It hit scaringly close to home because his parents always told him about maintaining a good sleep schedule.

"That is true; thank you for reminding me to take breaks regularly; I see now how taking breaks is important to take care of yourself after doing long study sessions,"

"You're welcome, so see you tomorrow in the library?"

"Why not?"

Alan went into his room and laid down his cumbersome backpack, the smell of fresh afternoon air entered his nose. He changed into his house clothes and went to his desk to start doing the endless amount of assignments that Mr. Ratburn had assigned, and he was surprised that he had to do all these assignments and he had to do them daily. Brain set up a time and set the minutes to just 30, so the genius could take a proper break. He shuffled through his papers and saw the note that Fern had left him. He decided to tape it to the far right of his monitor so that he could be reminded of it every time he looked up or to the right of his monitor. Brain finished the essay and then did some of the assignments as the timer rang. He temporarily put away his things and went onto a gaming website. He realized how relaxed he was now that he got to take a proper break. He didn't even realize how tired he was until he took his first adequate recess after studying.