Papa and Daddy were still chatting by the time Alfred came back into the kitchen. He had been playing with Matthew, leaving on Papa's request. But that had been a while ago.

The two noticed their son coming in and spoke in hush tones. Arthur glared but stepped back in defeat. Papa smiled at Alfred in victory.

A few days later, Alfred was at Ivan's house. The place looked very nice, clean and neat. There wasn't a knick knack on the shelf that wasn't right where it was for a purpose. Those little Russian dolls were set up in order by size and color.

Irina was only ten years old but acted like a second mother to Ivan. She offered them cookies before sending them off to play. Ivan and Alfred found an empty box and pretended it was a space ship.

"Wow dude! I'll totally be a space man when I grow up."

"Me too," Ivan added. Alfred smiled at him."Let's make a promise. We'll go to the moon together."

"Okay," his friend readily agreed.

After playing with the box for a while, Alfred became hungry. Ivan seemed amuse that he was already working up an appetite. Irina however seemed to be pleased that her little brother had a friend with such passion for eating. She whipped up some quick dishes and he ate them all.

"You'll grow into such a strong man at this right, little Fredka."

Alfred paused mid bite on some sort of meat dish.

"Fredka?" he repeated.

"I like the name. I want to call you that too," proclaimed Ivan.

Alfred turn to him.

"Then I'll choose a nickname for you. Um...I know! Ivy!"

There was a bit of a silence as Ivan took a moment to process that name. He frowned uncertainly, looking up at the ceiling as he considered the new title that Alfred had offered.

"I'm not sure that nickname suits me though..."

"Sure it does," Alfred insisted with a grin, "It sounds like your name and is all clingy like you and everywhere like you."

The young boy completely missed the hurt look on his friend's face. Irina decided to leave the room to let them sort it out for themselves.

"You think I'm clingy?" Ivan demanded with a scowl.

In a rare instance, Alfred was at a loss for words, wondering what he did wrong. Everything was fine just a few seconds ago.

"Well...I mean you do kind of tag along whenever I'm doing something at school. You don't seem to do anything unless I'm doing it."

Ivan stared down at the floor. If he glared any harder, there would be lasers out of his eyes. Alfred realized that he made a terrible mistake but didn't know how to fix what he said.

"Ivan, I didn't mean-"

"I won't follow you or do anything with you anymore then."

Alfred thought he heard a crash but realized that was his own heart breaking.