Meeting You

'Friend.' Laurie didn't expect the pain that hit her chest when Jiro asked her if she didn't consider him as a friend. The pain gripped her heart, made her chest prickly that every time she took a breath it was too painful to bear, her eyesight turned hazy and she had to fight for the urge not to blank out. 

"Are we friends?" She heard herself ask Jiro in a steady voice that sounded so unfamiliar in her own ears. 

"I asked you first," Jiro replied with a grim expression on his face. He was about to open his mouth to say something else when he got interrupted when the elevator door opened and a couple of men in black suits got in.