(Yii2) Why is the result of $UserModelInstance->friends different from $UserModelInstance->getFriends()?

Question

Yii

The user model has a getFriends() method

public function getFriends()
    {
        return $this->hasMany(static::className(), ['id' => 'id'])
            ->viaTable('{{%user_friends}}', ['friend_id' => 'id']);
    }

Since the Model class inherits from the Component class, in which get is overridden, then, in theory, $UserModelInstance->friends should return the same as $UserModelInstance->getFriends() .
But $UserModelInstance->friends returns an array of User models, and ->getFriends() returns object(yii\db\ActiveQuery)
PS property friends in the User model does not.