A/N: I have the weirdest ideas when I actually have to sleep

Kiku Honda was in the middle of Programming Language class when he heard the announcement.

Herakles Karpouzis, a History sophomore, was found dead in his room earlier that morning. His funeral would be held on the next day if any student wanted to attend.

Just as the intercom finished the announcement, the rumor mill began its work. Kiku started to hear the words "suicide", "murder" and "just like the others". He was aware of some of those rumors. In the past three years, around six young men of high school age had been found dead in the town, plus more in other cities. While the authorities ruled their deaths as suicides, the truth was that no cause of death was found in any of the victims. None presented injuries or traces of overdose. At most, they knew was that the victims were described by their families as presenting odd behavior a few days before dying, such as becoming more quiet and introverted. Students were starting to believe that maybe Karpouzis was the newest case.

He decided to pay no mind to it. It was never a good thing to speculate about a person's death in such a vapid way, he thought.

After class was over, Kiku packed his things and walked back home. He had no plans to attend the funeral as the guy was from another class and they didn't talk to each other. However, he thought of maybe bringing a flower to his grave. After all, even if he never knew Herakles, a death at such a young age was always tragic.

Upon returning home, he ate dinner with his parents, finished his school assignments for the day, and took a quick shower before going to bed. After changing into his night clothes, looked into his bedroom's mirror in order to dry and brush his hair.

To his surprise, Herakles Karpouzis was sitting on the other side of the mirror, looking at him.

"Who... who are you?" He said, because there was no way this was actually happening. He had to be dreaming.

"My name is Herakles, uhh... I'm in second year of History. We've seen each other on the halls or the campus' cafeteria, I think." Responded Herakles as he picked up a cat that walked close to him. His voice was slow and quiet, as if the mere act of talking were exhausting.

Kiku shook his head in disbelief, "You... you died this morning. The dean gave us the announcement."

Herakles had a confused look on his face. He seemed to gather his thoughts while gently stroking the cat behind its ears, "But I'm not dead. How can I be dead if I'm talking to you?"

"You are inside the mirror."

Herakles seemed even more confused than before, "I really don't know what you're talking about."

"This is not real." Kiku said more to himself, "I barely know you."

"Well...I like sleeping, cats and Ancient Greek history."

Kiku sat on the chair next to his desk and tried to compose himself for a moment. Maybe it was stress from College or perhaps the announcement affected him more than he thought, since he had no other way to explain why he was talking to a dead person he had never met.

At the end, he let out a resigned breath and decided to play along. This would be most likely forgotten by morning.

"So, about that cat..."

I must be feeling pretty lonely.

Kiku almost felt sad when he said goodbye to the man in the mirror in order to go to bed. He and Herakles had spent almost four hours conversing and only stopped when Kiku insisted that he didn't want to fall asleep in the middle of Computational Linguistics, or any class for that matter. He had to admit that, even if he had just talked to a figment of his imagination, that had been the most interesting chat he had for a long while. In his year and a half at college, he never had been particularly close to any of his classmates.

Herakles seemed to be a History student with an interest in Ancient Greece. His mother was actually Greek, but moved away before he was born. When he wasn't studying, he often took naps with his cat and others he found roaming close to his dorm or his mother's house.

Kiku knew that his Herakles couldn't be anywhere close to the real one that had just passed away. Maybe, in his loneliness, he had projected the image of a friend and, because the announcement at the campus had left an impression on him, he used the likeliness of Herakles Karpouzis as a base.

The thoughts remained in his mind as sleep took over him.

Kiku was in his bedroom putting on his clothes for the day when he heard the soft meow of a cat nearby. He turned around and found the source at his bed.

The culprit was a calico bobcat sleeping lazily on the bed's pillow. Kiku recognized it as Corporal, Herakles' cat. As much as he loved cats, his parents did not and, as a result, cats had never been allowed at home. Worried that either his mother or father would hear Corporal, he gently but quickly picked it up.

"I'm sorry, Corporal, but cats aren't allowed here. Please go back to your owner."

He set Corporal on the floor and the cat walked away. Satisfied, he put his laptop on his bag and went downstairs for breakfast. After finishing his oatmeal, he bid farewell to his mother and went on his way to college.

While he was in the bus, he noticed a woman carrying her pet cat on the street, and at that moment he realized something: He had picked up a cat that was not real whose owner was a person that was also not real.

Once he arrived at front building of the campus, he took out his phone and called his mother. He would go back home late that day, since he had a funeral to attend.

A/N: The author regrets having to find info on cats since author is a dog person. Corporal is supposed to be a Japanese Bobcat.

Also available on AO3