Features

Raising a friendship

Maddie Hickman, social media editor| April 11, 2023

Johnson and Gray said they grew closer when they both started working at Raising Cane’s together.

In a school of 1772 students, two girls met through mutual friends during lunch and ended up becoming closer than ever. Asia Gray, junior, and Jakirah Johnson, sophomore, have had an ongoing friendship for 10 months. They’re glued at the hip and do everything together.

“We work [at Canes] together almost every day,” Johnson said. “Most of the time, whatever [position] we are doing, we do it together. If [Asia] is in the drive-through, then I am with her. It makes work more fun.”

Johnson and Gray’s favorite activity to do together is going out to eat. Johnson said she likes to try and get Gray out of her comfort zone to try new places. But they always get the same food wherever they go. However, she said that recently they have been staying home and making their meals instead. The majority of the time, Gray will be the one cooking and Johnson will be there to hangout and watch.

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I like to make cooking videos. We record them because they are good memories [for us to look back on].

— Asia Gray

“Usually we’ll see something on TikTok and decide that we have to make it,” Gray said.

Gray said they also like to get their lashes done every two weeks in Creve Coeur. By spending time and doing more activities together, they realized they wanted their friendship to extend past high school.

“[Asia] said she wants to live in an apartment when she’s older,” Johnson said. “We’re going to live together [after high school] outside of St. Louis. [Both of our favorite colors] are pink, so the apartment would be filled with pink accessories.”

Within the short amount of time they’ve been best friends, both Johnson and Gray said their favorite thing about their friendship is being able to make each other laugh. They said conversation flows easily between them.

“We just get each other,” Gray said. “At [Canes], I mixed up the Canes sauce and coleslaw cups. I was pumping [the Canes sauce] inside [the coleslaw cups]. We had to go to the bathroom [because] we were laughing so hard.”

The two of them talk every day. She said that between each class, she always meets up with Johnson until they are able to go somewhere for lunch together. Because they meet up so much during the school day, people started assuming they were related.

“Everyone started saying that we look alike,” Gray said.

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We started calling each other twins. We have matching shoes, and sometimes we like to match with our outfits.

— Asia Gray

Johnson said Gray is a quiet, chill person. She said that she doesn’t like being around loud people, so it was nice meeting Gray because she wouldn’t have to deal with a person like that.

“[An ideal day for us] would be doing [all of our favorite things],” Johnson said. “We would get our lashes done, go window shopping at the mall, make cooking videos and watch a horror movie.”