Our friend

It had been almost three weeks.

Tui came and went like weather now — sometimes a gust, sometimes barely there at all. The others noticed, of course. But no one said anything directly. Not yet.

He was still Tui — technically. He still showed up to rehearsals, remembered cues, texted the group chat with dry one-liners. But there was something underneath it all. Like he was moving through a different version of their shared world. A version only he could see.

He’d come home late, always with the same vague line: “Sorry, errands.” Sometimes he’d go straight to his room, lights off before anyone could ask what kind of errands lasted until midnight. Other nights, he sat at the kitchen table in the dark, nursing a glass of water, his phone face-down, eyes flickering toward nothing.

Nut was the first to sense it, but he didn’t press.

He’d grown up with silence — he knew how people used it to protect the parts of themselves they didn’t want to explain. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Tui was holding something between his teeth, some quiet tension that wasn’t just tiredness or stress.

One night, he passed Tui in the hallway. Tui offered him a half-smile, polite but distracted.

“You good?” Nut asked gently.

Tui nodded. “Yeah.”

It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the truth either.

Hong tried to watch without looking like he was watching.

He noticed things — the way Tui flinched slightly whenever a notification lit up his phone. The way his hands sometimes trembled when he thought no one was looking. The way he started wearing a hoodie even when it wasn’t cold.

Hong didn’t say anything. He just started setting out one extra bowl whenever he cooked dinner, leaving it covered on the counter. Tui never said thanks. But the bowl was always empty in the morning.

Lego was the loudest about pretending everything was fine.

He joked. Teased. Poked at Tui the way he always did — like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had changed.

But when Tui didn’t laugh at his usual nonsense, or offered just a quiet, tired chuckle, Lego’s smile would falter just slightly before he turned it into another joke.

One evening, Lego caught a glimpse of something in Tui’s duffel bag. A black envelope. No label.

He didn’t ask.

But he didn’t forget it either.

William noticed patterns.

He didn’t trust gut feelings — he trusted evidence. And the evidence was stacking up: Tui left the house more often, but never said where. His laundry started including unfamiliar items. There were receipts in the trash from cafés none of them had been to.

He was careful not to invade privacy. But he was watching. Quietly.

Not suspicious. Not yet.

But aware.

One night, all five of them were home. A rare thing.

Tui had come in late, said nothing, and sat at the edge of the couch with his hoodie up, fingers scrolling absently on his phone. The others were scattered around the room. No one brought up how long it had been since they’d all sat in the same space. No one brought up the quiet.

It wasn’t a heavy silence.

Just full of the things they weren’t saying.

Lego threw a cushion at Tui’s leg. “You gonna tell us where you disappear to every night, or should I assume you’re in the Yakuza?”

Tui looked up. Smirked, just barely. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

William narrowed his eyes slightly. Hong kept his gaze low. Nut, quietly, turned to look at Tui — and didn’t look away.

The moment passed.

But none of them stopped wondering.

The bruises were always in the places clothes could hide.

Tui knew how to cover them. Hoodies. Long sleeves. The art of distraction. He wore fatigue like armor now — slumped shoulders, tired eyes, a voice quieter than before. The others thought it was stress. Overwork. Something normal.

It wasn’t.

He was unraveling.

The boyfriend — his boyfriend — texted him constantly. Controlled what he said. Questioned who he was with. When Tui didn't reply fast enough, things turned ugly. Physically, sometimes. Emotionally, always.

“You’re wasting your time with them,” the boyfriend would say. “They don’t really care about you.”

And Tui, in his worst moments, believed him.

He came home late again that night. The apartment was dim. Someone had left the hallway light on for him.

He moved silently, but Nut had heard the door.

“You want to talk?” Nut asked from the couch, voice low in the dark.

Tui paused. Just for a second.

“No,” he said gently, without looking back. “Thanks though.”

And he kept walking.

Hong watched him quietly the next morning. Tui was hunched over his cereal, barely eating. One side of his jaw looked slightly swollen, like he might’ve slept funny — or like something had happened.

Hong wanted to say something. Ask something. But all he could do was sit beside him and pretend not to notice the way Tui’s fingers trembled on his spoon.

Lego started texting Tui more. Memes. Dumb stuff. Photos of dogs. Anything that might coax out a real response. Sometimes Tui answered. Most times he didn’t.

“You good?” Lego had sent last night.

The reply came this morning.

Yeah.

But it didn’t feel like Tui. Not really.

William noticed something was wrong with Tui’s posture during rehearsal. Stiffness. Like he was hiding pain. Like he was holding something in.

Later, when the others were distracted, William quietly asked, “Are you injured?”

Tui shook his head. “Just sore.”

William didn’t push. But a cold seed of suspicion took root in him.

None of them knew the truth:

That Tui was afraid.

That the man he trusted had become someone else.

That every step closer he took toward his dreams was one his boyfriend resented.

That he had threatened to expose Tui, to leak private things, to hurt him again if he didn’t quit the group.

Tui hadn’t told anyone. He didn’t know how to begin. Didn’t want to be a burden. Didn’t want to be weak.

But his silence was starting to break things.

Including himself.