two.

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I KNOW WHO I AM MEANT TO BE. AND BY THAT I MEAN I KNOW
WHO YOU'VE CARVED ME TO BE//

02: trained dogs.

"IS SHE HOT?" Is Keith's first question, after Mamés retold the encounter.

They are all in Melanie's room, the centre of the universe. His universe. Mamés is on her desk chair, and Keith's sitting on the flab of extra wood next to the window (the only one actively listening to what he's saying, clearly). Billie's curled up in the corner of Mel's bed with a book while Mel herself is on the bed, underneath her covers using her phone.

"Yes," he thinks about the small notebook in his back pocket. The one he carries around most of the time to scribble lyrics into when he wasn't at home. It burns—hot, hot, hot— in his pocket because when he sat down on the concrete to wrestle the words into his book, his pocket universe. 'Hot' wasn't the word he used to describe Ana.

"How hot?" Keith's smile is all teeth. It slices deeply into him, bright and sharp like he knows Mamés is lying. "On a scale of one to ten?"

"You know I don't rate girls," Mamés begins swallowing thickly, looking at the lump on the bed. The lump that is Mel. The lump that hasn't spoken to him since he arrived. His gut is tight.

Keith waves him off like he's trying to swat a fly. The sun chewing its way through the curtain catches on Keith's earring making it gleam.

"Okay," he tears his eyes away from Mel and cuts his gaze to Keith's shaved head instead. "She's a nine. No, a ten, definitely a ten."

"A ten, huh?" Keith muses, his grin is back and sharper than before. "That's pretty high, although your taste can't really be trusted, can it? Seeing that you have been in love with our very own Melanie, the ugly duckling since you've been in the womb."

Mel's middle finger shoots out from under the covers, and at the same time, Mamés flings his pillow at him feeling his cheeks burn. Keith dodges it easily, laughing. "Yeesh, so violent." He stops suddenly as if remembering something important. "Wait, is she white?"

"She's Asian." Mamés narrows his eyes at him. "Probably Chinese, her last name is Wang."

Keith's face falls, the gleam in his eyes going out like a light. "There goes my boner." He puts his two fingers at the corner of his eyes and stretches it upwards until his eyes are little slants. "How is this attractive?" He stretches his eyes further for emphasis. "I only do white girls."

Jesus.

The room is drenched in terse silence. All the blood drains from Mamés's face and he can feel his face screwing up. Ashen and ugly. Like Keith's inside, like his words.

Mamés opens his mouth but before he can say anything, Billie beats him to it.

"You're disgusting," her voice is quiet thunder. Her brown eyes narrow into slits. "And racist."

"How am I racist?" Keith asks loftily. "It's not a crime to have a type. Besides, Mamés is black. You don't see me complaining."

His chest is tight. He can feel his heart thudding, pressing into his rib cage.

It takes a moment for the words to sink in and while it does Billie glances at him, like she is waiting for him to speak. To put Keith in his place. But Mamés is quiet. Keith isn't complaining...and he doesn't want him to. God, he doesn't want him to. So he lets his dignity and his blackness pool neatly at his feet.

When Mamés finally speaks his voice is weak and his words are hollow. "Just leave it. Most girls aren't interested in stupid white boys anyway."

"Hey," Keith says, in indignation. "Now, who's being racist—"

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