Chapter Text
Some of them had suspicions, but no one was prepared when the news came out.
Dani had felt something was off when she had started to notice how often Albert would brush off their biweekly group hangouts. He was one of the most friendly people Dani had ever known, and he had never turned down an invite before. Majority of the time, he was the one inviting everyone and getting them all together. Yet one day he declined to join them at their favorite bar. Dani had been taken aback, but she had accepted it with little fight. Even someone as social as Albert would run out of battery. But then one invitation became two, became three, became four, became five and suddenly she couldn’t remember the last time she had physically seen Albert. His texts, too, usually frequent and even bordering on annoying, became more sporadic until they eventually stopped altogether. Dani figured he might’ve been burnt out, so she still sent him the occasional text. All of them were left on delivered. She didn’t have any good excuse to not have gone and go check up on him, but her projects were piling on at work and she couldn’t afford to focus her attention on anything or anyone else. She sincerely regretted not taking the effort to reach out when she turned on the television that fateful night.
Tem was never and had never been a confrontational person. It wasn’t in his nature, and he always sought the peaceful route instead of the interrogative one. So he didn’t know what to say when he saw Albert and had the abrupt realization that he’d gotten skinnier. He hadn’t noticed at first because he and Albert would meet up one-on-one once a week. But then Albert had started to flake out on him. They would plan something out, and then at the very last minute Albert suddenly had something else going on. Tem didn’t want to think that he held that against Albert, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t hold any resentment at all. That small shred of buried anger may have been what stopped him from saying anything when he and Albert finally hung out again, and he could see the bones in Albert’s wrists sticking out. That wasn’t something he'd ever thought would happen. Albert, since the day Tem met him all those years ago, has always loved to eat and loved to work out more. He was solid, stocky with hard-earned muscle. Someone who took up a definite amount of space. Not someone who got small and smaller until they withered away. But that was what Tem was witnessing. Every time they met up, now few and far between, he saw Albert shrink down more and more. But Tem didn’t know how to broach the subject. Or if he should attempt to at all. Albert never mentioned anything about it, and he still laughed and joked and smiled the same. Tem figured if something was seriously wrong with Albert then he would approach Tem first. He only realized how wrong his assumption had been when he was taking his late-night stroll and he saw a familiar face as he passed an electronic store.
Denis wished he could say that he had been paying attention, that he noticed the concerning signs, and that he did something about it. But the truth was that he hadn’t cared. While he and Albert were friends, they hadn’t met during public school, during some summer part-time job, or even at college. Albert never treated him any less familiarly because of it, but Denis could starkly feel the years difference of friendship between him and everyone else. While he wouldn’t say he normally felt excluded, he did feel more welcomed when Albert wasn’t there taking up everyone else’s attention. Not that he was explicitly ignored when Albert was there. It was always about him when he was, though. Since Albert had started skipping out on their group meet-ups, Denis was the one who got asked all the questions. He got to talk about himself for once and he got to learn more about Dani, Kaden, and Tem in return. Instead of having to sit through another story Albert had already told for the fifth time, or be regaled with a personal anecdote that everyone else at the table had witnessed but him. It was nice. It was more than nice if he was being fully honest. Denis was able to feel truly wanted by the people he considered his closest friends, and not like some last-second addition that they secretly laughed at. So when Albert had actually joined them one day and Denis happened to see some purple under Albert’s shirt—he didn’t say anything. He knew vaguely of Albert’s long-time boyfriend, Jake, but he had never met him. But he also knew Albert was extremely clumsy and he would rather talk to one of his better friends if it was something serious. So Denis kept quiet. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long time on the morning he woke up to Dani’s frantic texts.
Kaden didn’t think anything odd was going on at all. As Albert’s longest-standing friend outside of Jake, he was very familiar with this song and dance. Albert had always been a rather social person, but he immediately became a recluse the second his interest was locked onto something. Then texts wouldn't be responded to for a week or longer and he wouldn’t show his face outside as much. But he always came back. Even if sometimes it took longer than other times, Albert always returned from whatever depths he had dug himself into. Kaden never begrudged him for it because he knew it was in Albert’s nature. He also knew that Jake would be ensuring that Albert still took care of himself. Kaden had nothing to worry about, so he didn’t. Even if this time it seemed that it took Albert longer to get his head back above water. Still, Kaden didn’t worry. It was only when he was able to see Albert for the first time in weeks that he saw how different Albert looked. He was paler, which did make sense considering Kaden doubted he’d been going outside at all, but he was also withdrawn. He didn’t contribute much to any conversation and he always seemed to be looking over his shoulder at something Kaden couldn't see. He had wanted to grab Albert by the shoulders and shake him and ask what’s wrong and how he can help and innumerable other things. But Kaden didn’t do anything because they were at a bar and they were supposed to be having a fun night out. It was too public of a space to delve into any potentially sensitive topic. He set a mental reminder to ask Albert tomorrow, but then he woke up late and grouchy from his hangover. Then he was back hustling at work. Then he was meeting with his friends again and he was laughing so loudly he didn’t notice Albert was missing. Then he forgot about it completely. It was only when he was facing the television flashing above the bar that he was forced to reconcile with reality. A news reporter was crammed into the small rectangular screen. Kaden’s eyes read the sprawling headline, but it didn’t make any sense to him. It was something that could never have possibly happened. That didn’t change that it was Albert’s smiling face on the screen.
Albert has been declared missing and Jake has been named the main person of interest. Or, he would’ve been, if he hadn’t disappeared three days later.