#11 FOREVER

CHAPTER ONE    5 HOURS

Staring out the window of the Taxi, watching the city zip by, Rain reflects on the conversation he had with P'Payu just a few short weeks ago.

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"Rain?" Payu asks for his attention from across the dinner table

"Huh" Rain looks up from his meal to see Payu staring at him

"I think it's time to take our vacation, just you and me like I promised you months ago"

"What...really?"

"Here" Payu says while sliding an envelope across the table

"What's this?" Rain questions, raising one eyebrow

"Open it" he nods

Taking everything out of the envelope, placing it on the table. "Is this.....are these....plane tickets..?

"Yup, I already picked the place got the plane tickets and booked the villa" watching Rain's face carefully

"Oh wow this is to Bali" Rain says excitedly while reading the tickets

"Are you mad?"

"What, why would I be mad P'?"

"Well because I chose everything without you, you're not upset I picked the place without asking you first?"

"No...this is a good surprise, I'm glad you told me now though and not on the way there, I have to know how to pack"

"Well you would have seen where we were going at the airport, so I thought now would be the time to surprise you...so you're ok with going to Bali?"

"Of course! I've heard it's really beautiful there. Wow Indonesia, that's so cool" Rain smiles turning the tickets over in his hand

Payu grins "that's right, it's a beautiful place and it's not so far away from home that it would take more than a day to get there, at first I thought we could go to America or maybe Mexico, but that would take a long time, a super long flight with a lot of lay overs"

"Yea that sounds scary, flying over the ocean for so long. No P' this is great, I love it"

"Ok good I was worri.."

"Wait" Rain stops Payu mid sentence "How long is the flight anyway?"

"It'll probably take somewhere around 5 hours"

"Oh ok...but isn't that a really long time to be in the air? I've never spent more than an hour and a half on a plane"

"Well that still gets us there on the same day, I don't think 5 hours is too long, it's a little longer than 2 movies, or you could sleep" Payu says reassuringly

"It's just..... 5 hours seems so long to be up in the sky, don't you think P'?" Rain says nervously

"Not really, it'll be fine Rain, the time will go by faster than you think, we can find a movie for you want to watch right after we take off and then maybe eat something before starting another one. You'll hardly notice"

"Ok" Rain feels really uneasy, but doesn't want to say anything to P'Payu, he seems to think it's just fine, so I'm sure it's just fine.

After dealing with all the security checkpoints at the airport, they finally board their plane. Payu booked Rain a window seat, and he paid for the third seat so no one was sitting next to us. We put one of our carry-ons in the empty seat.