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It was one of the hottest summer nights Nathan remembered having lived. During the past few days, he had been walking around at home with no shirt, trying to escape the merciless heat that seemed to have taken over everything. Whenever night came and he went to bed, he couldn't last more than a few minutes covered by his sheets, and he ended up pushing them aside. Even then, he had woken up several times in the middle of the night, sweating profusely and feeling a bit anxious.

It went without saying that Nathan had been in a terrible mood for a while.

So when he heard the strange noises coming from his balcony way past midnight, he didn't feel as frightened as he would have doubtlessly felt under other circumstances. The tiger had managed to sleep only a few hours the previous night and he was pretty irascible, so the only thing he could feel at that moment was an intense rage, fully aimed at whoever had dared wake him up in the middle of the night. He quickly stood up, leaving his bedroom and walking towards the balcony with heavy steps.

However, he had not been ready for what his eyes saw once he got there. He had been expecting a bird, or a stray cat, or maybe even a thief. But instead he found... something that took him a short while to identify.

It was a dark silhouette that hung from the upper balcony. From that distance, Nathan could have sworn it was some kind of cocoon, maybe even a bundle of blankets that someone had wrapped in a very specific way and left hanging from their balcony. The tiger squinted, trying to get a better image of what he had in front of him, but he had left his glasses on his nightstand and he felt no desire to come back. Whatever this thing was, it might get into his house, and then it would take him a lot more trouble to get rid of it.

He decided it would be better to approach whatever it was slowly -- he couldn't help but think that, if that thing was really a bundle of blankets, he was definitely making a fool of himself. But he'd rather be cautious. Even though he lived on the seventh floor, he knew some other flats nearby had been robbed in the past.

Nathan took a few steps closer and then the bundle moved, making the tiger completely toss away that theory. He felt his heart beating faster and stepped back, scared. Even without glasses, he could see that he had completely misjudged that thing.

Those were not blankets, those were... wings.

And when whoever was hanging upside down from the upper balcony stretched them, it became clearer to Nathan that his nightly visitor was, in fact, a bat.

"...hmmmmf... Hey, what are you doing here? You woke me up," the bat said, looking at him with sleepy eyes.

It took Nathan a few seconds to react.

"Wake... you up?" he repeated, perplexed.

"Sure! That's what you did. You're very noisy for a feline," the bat observed, yawning.

Nathan stared at the intruder in disbelief, still trying to find the words to say. Meanwhile, the bat seemed to be perfectly calm. He was rubbing his eyes right now, as if he had just been woken up from a deep slumber. Still, Nathan was certain he'd seen him arrive just a few minutes ago.

"You're the one that woke me up!" he exclaimed, finally losing his temper. "And... you weren't sleeping! Bats are supposed to sleep during the day!"

"Are they now?" the bat said, raising an eyebrow. Or, from his upside down position, lowering it. "Well, I guess you know better than me."

"It's basic knowledge! Anyway, that's not the point!" Nathan was feeling so frustrated that he had completely missed the most important part. "What are you doing on my balcony?"

"Huh. Technically I'm not on your balcony," he replied, shrugging. "I am hanging from another balcony which, I assume, is not yours!"

"Way to dodge the issue..." Nathan muttered, still angry.

He wanted to say something else to the bat, but he couldn't really find the words. Besides, it looked as if whatever he'd say to the intruder would make no difference.

His suspicions were confirmed when the bat just wrapped his wings around his own body again, letting out a drowsy squeak as he got ready to sleep once more.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he asked, stepping closer. "I'm telling you! You can't be here!"

"Okay, you're being rude now," the bat said, opening one eye and looking at him, slightly annoyed. "I'm asking you: please, let me sleep peacefully and stop bothering me."

"But this is my house!" the tiger complained.

"I thought we had agreed that it wasn't," the bat said, yawning again. "Anyway, if you're going to be rude, at least do it from the right orientation."

It took Nathan a few seconds to process those words. Even when he did, he wasn't sure he had fully understood.

"What do you mean?" he asked, a bit confused.

The bat groaned a bit. He looked really bothered now.

"I mean, look at you! You're obviously hanging upside down. It's not very polite to shout things at people from that orientation. You should at least get in their orientation first."

"I'm not hanging upside down. You are!" Nathan pointed out. This whole conversation had begun to feel slightly ridiculous.

He was hoping the bat would get mad and leave, but he just sighed.

"See? I can't have a conversation with you if you're going to be like this. Look. You're upside down. Just admit it, that's perfectly fine! But you should really not do that if you're planning to talk with me."

"I'm not..."

"I'm not upside down," the bat interrupted him, producing a terrible imitation of his voice. "Well, then, why do I see you like that? Explain."

Nathan snorted.

"Well, because you're the one upside down, obviously!"

"Really? Prove it."

The tiger opened his mouth to say something but closed it a few seconds later. He then opened it again and grinned.

"Well, look at all the furniture in this room! It's placed according to my position, so it must mean you're the one that's hanging from the ceiling!"

"Oh, I see," the bat said. He looked bored now. "And who placed that furniture? Let me guess. It was you, right?"

"Well, of course!" The tiger couldn't believe he needed to argue about something like that. "Who else would it be? But that doesn't mean anything. If I were upside down, all my furniture would fall to the ceiling... floor! Or whatever!" he argued, trying to outwit the bat.

"You may have secured it to the ceiling, you know. If you're weird enough to walk upside down all day, then you're weird enough to do that, too."

Nathan wanted to find a convincing reply, but at that moment, he realized the whole idea of having a debate with someone who very obviously was intruding on his house was probably very silly. Besides, he wasn't the one upside down! The bat was! There had to be a way to prove it.

Wait, no! he told himself again.

"That's not the point!" he exclaimed, both for the bat and himself. "You're in my house! Please, leave!"

"Look, I know a good way to prove who is upside down," the bat said then. Nathan snorted again and was about to say out loud that he didn't want to prove that, but then the bat continued speaking. "If I am upside down - as you seem to believe - then I won't last hanging here for a long while. I'm a young bat, but my legs aren't that strong! I'll end up falling to the ceiling... I mean, your floor."

"Okay, and...?" the tiger asked. He couldn't see exactly where the intruder wanted to go.

"Well, you could fall too! Fall to my floor. Your ceiling. If you're upside down, you'll probably get tired enough very soon and you'll let yourself drop," the bat argued, softly. "I think that's a nice way to settle who is right about this, don't you think?"

A part of Nathan wanted to disagree. He wanted to force the bat to go out and just leave forever. He wanted to go back to bed and sleep there, even if it meant moving around for a few more hours because of the heat.

But at the same time, he was pretty sure the bat wasn't just going to leave.

"Alright. If I prove you're the one upside down, you will leave!"

The bat looked annoyed.

"You're so insistent! You're completely missing the point. But alright, I'll leave you alone if that's what you want."

Nathan grinned.

"Alright, then. I'm going to stay right here until you drop to the floor, clever bat."

"Maybe not right there, though! I can see you're squinting. And I must apologize - as a bat, I don't have especially good vision. So maybe you could get a little bit closer? I don't want to miss any of the details of what you do."

"The feeling is mutual," the tiger said, taking a few steps closer.

Once he had done that, he was just a few feet away from the bat. He could take a good look now, even without glasses. Under the shadow of those wide wings, the bat had white fur that made him slightly more distinguishable in the dark. Nathan was certain the intruder was the one hanging upside down now - he could see his claws closed around the handrail of the upper balcony. When his gaze moved down, he encountered the bat's face directly. He had a pinkish muzzle and white sharp fangs.

But it was the eyes that caught his attention.

For someone who had just said he had bad vision, those eyes were pretty big. They took up most of the space in the bat's face, and were big and green and unlike any other eyes the tiger had seen before. He found himself getting lost in them for just a second, but he managed to break away from the spell.

"So, what do we do now?" Nathan asked, trying to avoid thinking about those eyes again.

"Hmm. I don't know. Wait, I suppose," the bat replied, shrugging. The small movement drew the tiger's attention to his eyes again, and he just barely managed to look away.

"Maybe we could talk about something," he offered. He was actually thinking doing this would be a bit boring unless they found something to do.

"Oh, that sounds good! Do you have something you want to talk about?" the bat asked, looking at him with curiosity.

Nathan definitely had something to talk about. He had just been thinking about it before he had offered to start a conversation, but, for some reason, now that the bat had asked that question he found himself unable to remember what it was.

"Uh... no," he admitted.

"I see. Well, I do have something we can talk about! We can talk about how you're going to apologize to me once you lose this bet and drop to the floor," the bat said, smiling.

"That's not gonna happen," the tiger replied, a bit nervous for some reason. Suddenly, his eyes met the bat's gaze again and he felt as if he didn't really want to look away. After struggling for a few seconds, he decided there was nothing bad about staring into the bat's eyes and simply gave up.

It was a bit awkward, but that was it.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it's going to happen!" the bat insisted. "You see, I'm a bat, and I'm used to being upside down a lot. That's why I know you'll feel really tired soon. Before you know it, your legs will begin feeling all tingly and sore, unable to hold your weight. When that happens, it will be a matter of time before you let yourself drop."

"I won't drop," the tiger grumbled.

"I'm not so sure about that. No one can remain upside down forever. And it seems to me you're feeling a bit sleepy already, so you probably don't have much time left," the bat explained. Nathan found it difficult to pay real attention to his words. Those eyes were so beautiful he had trouble thinking about anything else. "That's okay, though. Feeling tired and dropping after so much effort is perfectly normal. No one will blame you."

Nathan sighed. He was going to say something, but he was too busy following the bat's eyes left and right as he...

"Wait," he muttered, then. His voice sounded way more sleepy than he expected. "Are you... swaying?"

There was an amused gleam somewhere deep in the bat's eyes.

"Me? Oh, no. The only one I can see swaying here is you!"

"But I..." the tiger began, trying to understand. He hadn't felt as if he was swaying, but now he could see the bat's face moving left and right slowly, pulling his own gaze with every movement.

He didn't really want to lose track of those big, beautiful emerald eyes. The green felt so good.

"Swaying isn't very polite either, you know? But you're already upside down, so, well, who cares," the bat said. Nathan couldn't really understand what he was talking about now. "Anyway, as I was saying... Your legs must be feeling pretty tired by now."

It only took Nathan a second to realize that, in fact, they were. He hadn't noticed because he had been so busy following the bat's beautiful gaze left and right, but his legs did feel a bit sore. Maybe that was because he had just got out of bed in the middle of the night and he should already be sleeping. Maybe it was because it had been a few days since he had last slept for more than five hours. Maybe it was because the bat's eyes were making him feel all kinds of things.

Or maybe it was because he was hanging upside down.

"Oh! You're swaying a bit harder now. Be careful or you'll fall," the bat suggested. "And you wouldn't want that. Remember that you're supposed to win the bet so I can leave."

Nathan had almost forgotten about that. For some reason, he couldn't really remember why he had started talking with the green-eyed bat. Once he had mentioned it, it had come back to the tiger's mind, but now that he'd been looking at his eyes for a while, it was difficult to remember it again.

Instead, it felt as if the whole world was... different. Nathan wouldn't have been able to explain it, in his state, even if it had been easy to explain. Everything felt heavier and difficult, and the tiger felt as if the mere effort of staying awake was already too much for him.

Maybe the bat was right. Maybe hanging upside down like that for such a long time was too demanding.

But he wasn't... Right?

"Don't worry, tiger," the bat said, gently. "I'll be here to catch you if you fall too hard. No need to be afraid."

Nathan wasn't. He just felt as if suddenly the green had taken away the whole world and replaced it with something completely different. His balance was off and he couldn't tell whether he was the one swaying or the bat was. Everything felt as if it was moving, tottering. He could feel gravity pulling his body somewhere else, although he wasn't entirely sure where.

The eyes were so beautiful to stare at. The tiger hadn't noticed that until that moment, but they seemed to be glowing softly. The glow was magnificent. It made everything feel good and nice, and at the same time, helped his legs relax after making such a big effort. Nathan felt as if he'd been working all day, struggling to remain in that position, hanging upside down. And those eyes helped him forget about all the strain and teased him with the promise of letting go of that burden.

At some point, the tiger wasn't sure what was going on. The world was swaying. The world was upside down. Or maybe it wasn't doing either of those, but he was. The bat was speaking, but he wasn't very sure if he could understand what he was saying any more. He just had to wait, but it was hard to wait. His legs felt so tired. He wanted to let go. The green was asking him to let go. Everything was so heavy.

And then, it happened. The bat said something and he dropped.

His footpaws left the ground and he could feel himself falling somewhere else. He wasn't sure where, but there was green, and there was rest. He felt immediately much better and a relaxed, pleased sigh left his lips. Gravity pulled from his body and made him fall faster, deeper and deeper. He felt like a stone falling down a cliff for an instant, heavy and unable to stop itself from falling.

Then, the bat did as he had promised and caught him. Nathan could feel himself wrapped in his wings, safe and comfortable, and he let out another sigh. It was so good to finally be able to rest.

It was so good not to be upside down any more.

"Nice," he could hear the bat say softly, somewhere near his ear. Warm, relaxing darkness would take over everything right after the next words. "Let's see if we can both get some well-deserved sleep now..."