Kiran squinted at the bathroom mirror in front of him. 

He could pick out every single last imperfection that he couldn’t fix before this next interview. From his black hair that remained in a perpetually awkward medium length to his mild acne, Kiran could feel his confidence dropping with every passing second. 

All he could think of was the countless hours of applications and rejections he had received just to lead up to this point. If he were to fumble this interview, who knows how long it’d be until he could get another one. 

After all, it generally wasn’t common for first year students to get an internship, despite the prestigious school he attended. There was just too much competition, and the roles usually went to third or fourth year students who were much more qualified. 

But Kiran believed he was different. He was a genius (overthinker), and he was going to get this internship, like his life depended on it. 

He splashed some cold water on his face, and his cheap white collared shirt, cursed once, and walked to the interview room.

***

Khon was an old ghost. He’d lived through the beginning of time all the way till now, and that was by no mistake. He was a coward. A generational coward. While his peers worked on cultivating their powers and training, Khon had one specialty. Running, running away from his enemies very quickly. 

That was how he survived. 

But even he couldn’t out run old age. So with his last remaining years, he procrastinated heavily on how to achieve immortality. There were numerous ways in which one could achieve youth with the right utilization of Ichor. But Khon wasn’t really interested in research all that much. 

He just didn’t want to die. Telling himself that he had time, he waited all the way until the very last week he had. Where he had to resort to being a parasitic ghost. The lowest among low lifeforms for higher beings like Khon. 

But who was he to complain? After all, it was he who had procrastinated this work until the last day. And this bum was now attached to Kiran. Perhaps a match made in... productivity hell?

Either way, his hosts over the ages were never able to see or interact with him, so Khon didn’t really mind being attached to a fellow lazy bum like Kiran. 

Kiran suited Khon quite well. After all, there were birds of feather. 

***

‘Fuck,’ Kiran thought. 

‘Yeah I’m cooked. 19 years old with no dreams, no aspirations, no hobbies, no girlfriend, no job, mickey mouse degree. I might as well just-’

Kiran took a deep breath and closed his eyes while he reminisced on the last ‘spread positivity’ post he saw on Instagram reels. As a time efficient man himself, Kiran had deleted TikTok in hopes that he would spend his time more wisely. 

He did not. He simply went to Instagram reels and instead watched content that would have been relevant a month ago. But the comments section more than made up for that. 

He giggled a bit, similar to how a schizophrenic person shivered when hearing voices. 

‘God, if you can hear me, I deserve to be stricken down. Or is it struck down? Wait…’

Kiran pulled out his phone and began searching, trying to dig into the truth of something that he didn’t really care for. 

He glanced at the time, which read 2:37pm. 

‘I’ve got plenty of time. I’ll wrap this up quickly and then startup the application process again. Lord knows that I deserve a break right now.’

Right beside Kiran, there rested a withered old ghost, who shook his head. And then promptly drifted behind him as he saw Kiran open up Instagram, to get a better view of the reels he’d watch for the next few hours. 

***

‘Fucking finally...’ Khon thought. 

Now the real interesting part of Kiran life had begun.