:I

The lot of us were already prepared and ready to depart. It was that time again to commemorate our yearly trip. This trip was our way to stay in touch and take a breather from the normal hectic, ever so demanding life. We were all considered successful but led a hectic life; some led an even more strenuous one than the other. This trip not only brought us all together but brought us together with the best of companies.

We were all from the same neighborhood, a good one with highly regarded families, on the contrary at least. My friends, most of them when to the same primary school and each one of us attended the same high school. Though throughout the years we met new faces, people and friends… this bunch of guys were just simply irreplaceable.

The thing is, when we get together each one of us turn into fools and we normally end up doing something really stupid in the name of ‘fun’. Best thing about it was, speaking from experience over the days; we did some really bad things. But like I said we were from good families. Hence we’ve always managed to slip through the law, rather easily I would boast.

We didn’t had the need to impress anyone, we were more than comfortable with each other and being together, going on a trip to Europe made us excited and feel free as a bird.

As usual a couple of us arrived late, so we had to wait for them to run through the usual routine at the counter. The rest of us, waited for them at the departure area. As we were standing there, this young salesman who had a booth nearby approached us. He was selling some electrical devices, I don’t recall what he was selling exactly.

Despite his cheap clothing, he was quite well versed and carried himself well. He had good features too and we started to converse with him. After a few minutes, he was already chatting away with the lot of us.

Angkoh, suddenly realized that our friends that arrived late were standing across where we stood facing the counter. They were queuing up waiting for their turn to come up. I saw a grin on Angkoh’s face. He looked at the salesman, whom we came to know as Slav.

Angkoh turned to him and said, “Hey Slav, I need you to go and send a message for me.” Slav raised an eyebrow playfully and after a few seconds staring at Angkoh, he realized that Angkoh was not joking. “What is it?” he asked.

Angkoh replied, “I want you to go to the two guys over there and right in their face say, “fuck you!” He emphasized on that curse as he said it to Slav and laughed. As a response, Slav immediately said no and refused to do as demanded by Angkoh.

Angkoh however knew how things worked; he told Slav that he’d pay him 50 bucks, if he adhered to him. Once again Slav said no. Soon Angkoh appeared to be a little too persuasive, “Come on now, how much do you get paid here? 4 ringgit per hour? Heh, this will take you less than 5 minutes.” I started to feel quite bad for Slav but then the other guys started to persuade Slav and asked him to go do it.

Slav had to oblige. I saw him walking slowly towards my other friends; the guys were already snickering waiting to see how the guys who were queing up would respond. Oddly enough, Slav was smiling as well. That’s surprising, I thought to myself. He looked really glum about the idea, before he started.

As he got there, he stood there right in front of them and we noticed, instead of just muttering the words he was supposed to…he appeared to be talking to them longer than he should have. The guys from both sides were laughing. And the ones who came late pointed towards us and were laughing hard.

Everyone did except for Angkoh. He knew that his plan had failed. Slav returned and demanded for his money. Angkoh pointed a finger to his bodyguard who was wearing a black leather jacket. The man took out a 50 ringgit note and handed it to Slav.

The guys were done with their transactions at the counter and they joined us. We were already behind schedule. I shook Slav’s hand in a hurry and went off with my friends. As were walking towards the gate I heard Angkoh saying, “Sampah” in disgust. Nevertheless, I am sure he’ll forget about this in a few minutes time and come up with more idiotic ideas for a joke. That too was the very last time I saw Slav.