Alfred

I could see why Alice was upset over Peter's drawing, but that didn't mean I agreed with her.

Friends come in all different shapes and sizes, we all know that, so why should "imaginary" friends be any different? Alice had it all wrong. She had it all absolutely wrong because as far as I could see, she didn't have any friends.

Maybe it was because she was only looking for women around her age that looked, dressed, and acted like she did. You could tell by the look on her face, that's what she thought Peter should've done when she looked at Peter's picture of me and him.

But that's no way to make friends.

The most important thing is not what we look like, but the role we play in our best friend's life. Friends choose certain friends because that's the kind of company they are looking for at that specific time, not because they're the right height, age, or have the perfect hair color. I didn't see any other "real" older males interacting with Peter in his life right now, did you? Maybe I'm exactly what he needs right now.

It's not always the case, but there's a reason why Peter will see me and not my coworker Tony, who looks six years old and always has a cheerful attitude. Just because you see one "imaginary" friend, it doesn't mean you see them all. You have the ability to see them all, but as humans only use 10 percent of the brain, you wouldn't believe the other abilities there are.

There are so many other wonderful things that the eyes could see if they really focused. Life's kinda like a painting. A really awesome, abstract painting filled with all sorts of shapes and colors. You could look at it once and think that's all it is, just chaos. And you could keep on living your life thinking that all it is, just another distant blur of a memory.

But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. That painting could be of the ocean, the sky, people, buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the mess you were once convinced it was.

After what happened in Alice's office, I had to call an emergency "What IF" meeting. I've been in this job for years and I thought I'd seen it all, but obviously I hadn't. Saoirse seeing me and talking to me had really surprised me. I mean, it was completely out of my zone.

Okay, so Peter could see me, that was normal. Alice had some sort of a sense of me, which was weird enough, but I was starting to get used to it. But Saoirse seeing me? Now, that took the cake. Of course, it's possible to be seen by more than one on a job, but never by an adult, and never by two adults.

The only friend in the company who usually helped adults was Lucia, and there wasn't a specific rule to it, just what seemed to be happening all the time. I was seriously confused, so I got "the boss" to round up all the usual suspects.

Our "What IF" meetings were set up to discuss everyone's current situations and to knock around some ideas and suggestions for friends who needed help. I've never had to call one for myself before, so I could tell the boss was surprised when I did.

The name of our meetings has a fun double meaning. We were all tired of being labeled "imaginary friends," so we decided to call our meet-ups the "What Imaginary Friends" meetings. I came up with it myself.

The seven people that meet up are the most senior people in the business. I arrived at the "What IF" room to the sound of everyone laughing and having fun. I greeted them all and we sat around and waited for the boss. We don't meet around long conference tables with stiff leather chairs in a boardroom with no windows and blinding bright lighting that'll make our eyes hurt and tear up.

We have a more relaxed style to it, and it really has a much more positive effect on our work because the more comfortable we all feel, the more we can contribute. We all sit around in a circle on our favorite seats. Mine's a beanbag. Lucia's is a rocking chair. She says it's easier for her to do her knitting that way.

Our boss's not really bossy, we just call her that. She's really one of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your whole entire life. Now, she's really seen it all, and she knows everything there is to know about being a best friend. She's patient and caring, listens and hears what people don't say more than anyone I know.

Yekaterina is her name and she's beautiful. We call her Katya for short. She walked into the room just then in her usual outfit, a simple white shirt and blue overalls, perfect for playing with friends indoors and outdoors. She had daisies nestled into her hair like a tiara, a daisy chain around her neck, and around her wrists. Whenever she smiles, the beam was enough brighten up any gloomy day.

"Nice daisies, Katya," Lilli said softly from beside me.

"Thank you, Lilli." She smiled. "Little Cara and I made them today in her garden. You're looking very nice today, what a lovely color."

Lilli beamed. She's been a best friend for about as long as I have, but she looks the same age as Peter. She's small, with blond hair that was today styled into bouncing curls, and is soft-spoken, with big clear eyes. She was dressed in a red velvet dress with matching red ribbons in her hair. Her polished shiny black shoes swung from her hand-crafted wooden chair. The chair looked like it belonged to a dollhouse or a fairy tale, yellow with painted hearts and flowers.

"Thank you, Katya." Lilli's cheeks blushed. "I'm going to a tea party after this meeting with my new best friend."

"Oh?" Katya raised her eyebrows, interested. "Very nice. Where is it?"

"In the back garden. She got a new tea set for her birthday yesterday," she replied.

"Well, that's lovely. How are things with little Michelle?"

"Fine, thank you." Lilli looked down into her lap.

The noise from the everyone in the room died down and all the focus was on Katya and Lilli. Katya wasn't the type to ask everyone to be quiet in order to start the meeting. She always began it quietly herself, knowing that that the others would finish their conversations and settle down in their own time. She always said that all people needed was time and then they could figure most things out for themselves.

Katya was still watching Lilli fidgeting with a ribbon on her dress. "Is Michelle still bossing you around, Lilli?"

Lilli nodded and looked sad. "She's still telling me what to do all the time, and when she breaks things and her parents get mad, she always blames it on me."

Lucia, an experienced best friend who was rocking in her chair while knitting, tutted loudly.

"You understand why Michelle is doing that don't you, Lilli?" Katya said softly.

Lilli nodded. "I know that with me being around, it gives her the opportunity to be in charge and she is only mirroring the behavior of her parents. I understand why she is doing it and the importance of her doing it, but that kind of treatment all day long can be a little hard to handle at times."

Everybody nodded in agreement; we had all been in her shoes at some point. Most kids liked to boss us around because it was their only chance to do it without getting into trouble.

"Well, you know she won't be doing this for very much longer, Lilli," Katya said encouragingly and Lilli nodded, her curls bouncing up and down. "Emil."

Katya turned to face a little boy sitting on a puffy armchair. Out of all of us, Emil best fits the description of what you'd expect from a ever-so-mythical "imaginary friend". With his violet eyes and super light blond hair, he looked like a character straight out of a fairytale. He had been calmly drinking his hot chocolate while listening to the conversation. When he heard his name, he set down his drink.

"You need to stop playing electronic games with little Eduard," Katya informed him sternly. "You know why, don't you?"

The little boy with the face of an angel nodded and when he spoke, his voice sounded much older than his image of a six-year-old. "Well, because Eduard's only three, he needs to play with toys that promote creativity, that are flexible, and can do more than one thing. Too many of the other toys will stunt his early development."

"What kind of things do you think you should be playing with?" Katya asked.

"Well, I'm going to concentrate on playing with, well, nothing actually, so we can do some role-playing, or use boxes, cooking utensils, or empty toilet-paper rolls."

We all laughed at the last one. Toilet-paper rolls are my absolute favorite, because you can do so many things with them. Telescopes, swords, games, the possibilities were endless!

"Very good, Emil, just try to keep it in mind when Eduard tries to get you to play on the computer again. Like Tony does." She trailed off, looking around. "Actually, where is Antonio?"

"Sorry I'm late," a loud voice called from the door. Tony rushed in with his arms swinging, like pinwheels wildly spinning out of control. There was mud all over his face, grass stains all down his knees and shins, cuts, scabs, and mud on his elbows. He dove straight to his beanbag, making a crashing noise with his mouth.

Katya laughed. "Welcome, Tony. Busy, were you?"

"Yeah," Antonio replied happily. "Me and Lovino were down digging up worms in his garden." He wiped his messy face across his tanned bare arm.

"Eww." Lilli wrinkled her nose in disgust and moved her chair closer to Alfred.

"Sorry, princess." Tony grinned apologetically over at Lilli, resting his feet on the table in front him. It had a selection laid out with fruit, drinks and cookies. Lilli looked away from him with wide eyes and concentrated on Katya.

"So, Lovino is the same as usual," Katya stated with amusement.

"Yes, he still sees me!" he responded cheerfully, like that was some kind of victory. "He's got a problem with bullies at the moment, Katya, and as he's been intimidated into secrecy, he won't tell his parents." He shook his head sadly.

"He's afraid they'll be disappointed in him or intervene, which will make it worse, and he's also embarrassed that he let it happen. All the usual emotions that go with bullying." He popped a chocolate chip cookie into his mouth.

"So, what are you doing about it?" Katya asked with concern.

"What was happening before I came along was that Lovino was experiencing chronic intimidation, he developed a pattern of compliance with the unfair demands of those he perceived as stronger, and he was beginning to identify with the bully and become one himself. But I wouldn't let him push me around," Antonio said confidently.

"We've been working on his posture, voice, and eye contact, as you know these communicate a lot about whether you're powerless or not. I'm teaching him to keep a lookout for suspicious people and every day we run over a list of how he can stop bullies from getting the best of him." He sat back and rested his arms behind his head. "We're working on him developing social skills."

"And you've been digging for worms," Katya added with a smile.

"There's always time for gardening." Antonio laughed. "It builds character!"

"Elizabeta." Katya turned to a girl in a green T-shirt, jeans and dirty sneakers. Her long brown hair was tied into a ponytail and she rolled back and forth on a skateboard. "How's little Jules getting along? I hope you two stopped digging up her mother's flower garden."

Elizabeta was a tomboy and kept getting her friends into trouble, whereas Lilli mostly went to tea parties in pretty dresses and played with Barbies and My Little Ponies. Elizabeta opened her mouth and began talking in a language I'd never heard of. Katya raised her eyebrows.

"So I see you and Jules are still speaking your own language." Elizabeta nodded.

"That's fine, but be careful. It's not a good idea to keep speaking like that for much longer."

"Don't worry, I know Jules is learning to talk in sentences and develop her memory, so I won't keep it up," Elizabeta said, returning to normal language. Her voice saddened. "She didn't see me this morning when she woke up. But then she did again at lunchtime today."

Everyone felt sad for Elizabeta and gave her our condolences because we all knew how that felt.

It was the beginning of the end.

"Lucia, how's Mrs. Jared?" Katya's voice was gentler.

Lucia stopped knitting and rocking and shook her head sadly. "Not long for her to go now. We had a lovely chat last night about a trip she went with her family seventy years ago to Huntington beach. That put her in a great mood. But as soon as she told her family this morning that she'd been talking to me about it, they all left."

She sighed helplessly. "They think she's talking about her great-aunt Lucia that died forty years ago and are convinced she's going crazy. Anyway, I'll stay with her till the end. Like I said, there isn't long for her to go and the family have only visited her twice last month. She's not hanging on for anyone."

Lucia always made friends in hospitals and homes for the elderly. She was good at that kind of thing, helping people reminisce till the early hours of the morning. Like children, the elderly have the ability to believe and hope, especially when they were really sick and weren't going to be with us much longer.

I guess it's at times like that when people take the time to really think about life, what they were here for and all its possibilities. They drop their defenses and allow themselves to open up to the new experiences of what's happening to them and their bodies. It was the people in the in-between ages, like Alice, who had their eyes shut to everything.

"Thanks, Lucia." Katya smiled and then she turned to me. "So, Alfred, how's it all going in Clover Road? What's the big emergency? Little Peter seems to be doing well."

I made myself comfortable on the beanbag. "Yeah, he's awesome. There's a couple of things we need to work on, like how he feels about his family, but nothing I can't handle."

"Good." Katya looked pleased.

"But that's not what the problem is." I looked around the circle at everyone with a mysterious smile. "His aunt, who adopted him, is thirty-four and sometimes, she can feel my presence."

Everyone gasped and looked around at one another in horror. I knew they'd react like that.

"But that's not even the half of it," I continued, trying not to enjoy the drama too much because after all it was my problem. "Peter's mom, who's twenty-two, came into Alice's office today and she actually saw me and talked to me!"

Double gasp. Apart from Katya, whose eyes twinkled back at me knowingly. I felt better when I saw that, because I knew that the boss would know what to do. She always did and I wouldn't be so confused anymore.

"Where was Peter when you were in Alice's office?" Katya asked, a smile curling at the corners of her lips.

"On his granddad's farm," I explained. "Alice wouldn't let me get out of the car to go with him because she was scared that her dad would get mad that Peter had a friend that he couldn't see." I was out of breath after saying all of that.

"So why didn't you walk back to Peter when you got to the office?" Tony asked curiously, sprawled across the beanbag with his arms behind his head.

Katya's eyes glinted again. What was up with her?

"Because," I replied.

"Because why?" Lilli asked.

Not her too, I thought hopelessly.

"How far is the farm from the office?" Emil asked.

Why were they asking all these questions? Shouldn't the important thing be why on Earth were all these people were sensing me?

"It's about a ten-minute drive, but thirty minutes walking," I explained, confused. "What's with all the questions?"

"Alfred," Lucia said, smirking, "don't be a fool. You know that when you get separated from a friend, you find them. A thirty-minute walk is nothing compared to what you did to get to that last friend of yours." She chuckled.

"Aw, come on guys." I threw my hands up helplessly. "I was trying to figure out whether Alice could see me or not. I'm really confused, you know. This never happened before."

"Don't worry, Alfred." Katya smiled and when she spoke her voice was like honey. "Remember, there are no rules to being a best friend. Anyone who really needs us can see us. This is rare, but it's happened before."

Everyone gasped again while Katya stood up, gathered her files together, and prepared to leave the meeting.

"Where are you going?" I asked in surprise. "You didn't tell me what to do yet."

Katya's warm blue eyes gazed at me. "This is not an emergency at all, Alfred. There is no advice that I can give you. You will just have to trust yourself that when the time comes, you'll make the right decision."

"Right decision? About what?" I asked, feeling even more confused now.

Katya grinned at me. "When the time comes, you will know. Good luck."

And with that she left the meeting with everyone staring at me in confusion. Their blank faces were enough to stop me from asking any of them for advice.

"Sorry, Alfred, I'm just as confused as you are," Lilli said apologetically, standing up and smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress. She gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I'd better go now too, or I'll be late."

I watched her skipping toward the door, her blond curls bouncing with every step. "Have fun at your tea party!" I called.

"Make the right decision," I mumbled to myself, thinking about what Katya had said. "The right decision about what?"

And then a scary thought popped up in my mind. What if I didn't make the right decision?

Was someone going to get hurt?

A/N: Hello, my dear readers~! This chapter took a lot longer than it should've, mostly because of my struggles again with the characters. I've swapped them in and out so many times that I'm still agonizing over if this fits best, but what's done is done, so I'm sticking with this! :x

Another friend told me this would've been cute if it was Prucan, and I was like Yasssss I wuv them! and I could see how it could've worked out and everything, but nope this story's got a life of its own~ (Plus there's other amazing stories out there!) If I were to write them as the main pairing, then I've already got a different idea for those two. Inspired by a book, with them invisible to everyone but themselves, I really look forward to that!