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Plot Summary
The boy thinks about he and his ex-friend used to hang but then stopped. Now, outside of a convenience store, he and his current friend are done with baseball practice and spot the ex-friend’s brother across the street. The current friend sports a baseball bat which he stole from their coach. Together, they watch the ex-friend’s brother hang with his boys, and the current friend wonders if they can join his crew. The boy asks his current friend why they should, and he answers that there’s money involved. The boy then says that it’s not possible, as there’s no trust.
The current friend says they can put in a word with the boy’s ex-friend so that they can start hanging out with his brother. The boy then thinks about how they used to be close during childhood until her ex-friend’s mother was put away, which caused the ex-friend to change and grow distant too. Now, they go meet up with him after practice and say they’ll come to his house.
On the way to the ex-friend’s house, the three of them get empanadas and then shortly after stumble upon a suited man who recently lost everything. The current friend asks the suited man if he’s hungry, and after getting no answer, he throws his empanada at him, dirtying his briefcase. The boy briefly argues with the current friend about it, while the ex-friend says nothing. The current friend presses the ex-friend to talk, after which the ex-friend turns around and spits between his legs.
Almost at the ex-friend’s house, the boy spots the ex-friend’s brother and thinks back to how he’s different now, how he used to be nicer but recently robbed a kid for his sneakers. Inside the house, the boy sees how dirty it is, and in the ex-friend’s bedroom, they sit down and try to relax with a bottle of alcohol, though eventually, they see cockroaches scurrying around. The ex-friend says that the cockroaches come and go at their own will, which confuses the current friend. He then says that it’s the anniversary of his mother’s disappearance today, after which the current friend says something insensitive, causing the boy to jab him.
Soon enough, the ex-friend lists facts about cockroaches and says that, one night, there was a cockroach lodged inside of his head which a doctor had to tweeze out piece by piece. The boy asks what it sounded like to have a cockroach in his head. The ex-friend then leaves the room and comes back with a gun. He holds it to the side of the current friend’s head and cocks and uncocks it, saying that it sounded similar to that.
After the ex-friend puts the gun back into his boxers, the boy and the current friend resolve to get out. They make their exit as the ex-friend and his brother meet by the front door of the house, next to a group of boys arguing. They then see the suited man again, which makes the boy think back to how he once fell off of his bike while biking with his ex-friend. After his fall, he looks up and sees the suited man while his ex-friend helps him up. Now, as he and the current friend are running away from loud sounds coming from the house they just came, the boy thinks about how he should have stayed back with his ex-friend just like how, back then, his ex-friend stayed with him.
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