from hard times to good times (Nct mark lee)

chapter 14 (max and long talk...)

I woke up the next day feeling refreshed, I went down stairs to make breakfast, as I ate my food in silence I had some thoughts in my head about so many things, first thing I have to do is talk to mark as soon as possible but the time zone difference makes it difficult.

I decided to text him. 'hey mark, how are you? I missed you so much, how about we skype today?' i pressed send and played the waiting game. A few hours later I got a text back 'hi lizzy, I'm good how are you? I missed you more, of course let's do it' I smiled at the text 'I'm good, ok can't wait' I sent the text and went to get ready.

I fixed my hair as I got ready to skype mark, feeling excited and nervous. "hey mark" I waved at the camera "liz! Oh I missed you, you look prettier than before" he waved excitedly and smiled brightly "oh mark, stop it" I blushed.

"you look great yourself" "ah thank you baby, we have so many things to catch up on" I felt anxious when I heard that I have to tell him about ten and the things that happened "yeah, so you start" I signaled him to speak.

"well I don't have much to say other than I'M COMING BACK IN A MONTH AND A HALF!!" He screamed the last part, my eyes went wide "FORREALS?!" I screamed too, my heart is pounding.

"really, I can't wait baby I want to hold you in my arms" he smiled softly "me neither mark" I felt a little chocked up and overwhelmed I'm finally seeing him again "aw baby don't cry, please, this is happy news now why are crying?" mark pouted.

I didn't even realize that I was crying, I touched my cheeks and felt the tears oh why am I like that I didn't realize that I'm missing him this much "oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to cry, I don't even know why I'm crying" I laughed as I wiped away the tears.

"so what's new with you? You seem to have a lot to talk about" mark asked "oh well I found out that I have a relative who was looking for me and he really cares about me" I took a breathe "he? Who's he?" he raised a brow at me "oh common mark stop it! We met like last week, and his name is ten".

he nodded for me to complete "he said he heard about what happened to my family and was shocked at how careless the other relatives were being and decided that he'll help instead"I let out a sigh "he sounds like a good guy, plus I trust you so I'm not worried" he smiled softly.

"what about you,anything new?" I asked him back "oh well I'm finally finishing off my finals next week an-" he looked to the side stopping his sentence "oh someone wants to say hi" he pulled someone towards the camera.

I squinted my eyes to see who it is, then I gasped "oh MY GOD MAX!" I screamed in excitement "n-noona?!"he looked closer at the screen "HYUNG, LIZZY NOONA!" he pulled mark's shirt and shook him violently.

"max stop shaking me"mark pushed max away while he was giggling "oh how's my little max doing?" I felt my heart swell in warmth he is so cute "noona I'm a big boy now" he pouted slightly "aww I see that, you're growing up fast" I smiled, then he suddenly started running "I love you noona bye!" he yelled while running away "I love you too!" I felt myself smile widely.

"oh now I feel left out" mark pouted making me giggle "oh stop it, you know how much I missed him" "oh yeah I do know" he sighed then stretched out looking behind him and suddenly frowning "oh I have to go now baby, I have a lot of homework to do" "ok,fighting mark!" I gestured with my fist at the camera.

We waved goodbye to each other and went on with our day.

Sitting around doing nothing is pretty boring. the bell rang suddenly, I opened the door and saw ten standing there with a weird smile on his face "you ok ten?" he shook his head and let out a shaky breathe "come in then" I pulled him in and closed the door behind.

We sat down on the couch just in pure silence, it was itching me to know what's wrong with him but I didn't want to push him so I waited.

"I need to talk to you about important things, and I want to tell you things that hopefully will help you with life" he started quite seriously which is very nerve-wracking "go ahead speak" I was too anxious to wait.

"ok so I'm going to tell you my story because I know you don't fully know why I looked for you to help you out in some way" this whole time he was looking at the ground, then he looked up at me.

"well when I was around 13 years old my family had a trip to somewhere out of town and I stayed in cause I didn't want to be bothered. That night It was quite rainy and everyone was worried, a couple of hours later we get a phone call that my family had a car accident, it was horrifying news to me , I yelled and screamed and tried to go to them but they wouldn't let me I lost my father and my mother was heavily injured and stayed in the hospital for a year before she passed away"he looked away with his eyes full of tears.

then he cleared his throat to continue "I was devastated and I had to stay in with my grandmother I wasn't happy about it, because I wasn't that fond of her, but I was too young and had nowhere to go. After I grew up a bit a was suddenly in a huge company that had my name all over it, I asked the people who work there and they told me it was my dad's company and I was the heir of it, I found that my dad had a lot of money, I suddenly had a lot of money too, a company, gold lots of gold,and a house. It was overwhelming at the beginning but I was happy that I would get out of that hell hole" he chuckled bitterly.

"then a few years a go I found out that the accident wasn't exactly accidental, they our relatives purposely messed up the car in a rainy day and they knew it was dangerous already but they were after my dad's money, when they knew that I didn't go with them they were furious so they made it their goal to torture me so I can go after my parents" his hands now balled into fists.

"but I wasn't stupid so I made my own plans, I became successful and threw them in jail" then he looked at me again but this time with a soft smile "then I heard about you,I wanted you to have it simpler than I did. To be honest knowing about you made me feel happy cause I knew you're a good person and I wanted to make you smile, hopefully you'll smile more. From today on I'll make it my responsibility to have you smiling more often" he then smiled brightly showing me his signature smile.

I hugged him tightly "I'm kind of overwhelmed by the new information so you need to give me some time to let that all sink in, I hope to make you smile too cause you deserve it" he hugged back "thank you" we pulled away "no thank you" I held his hands in mine "thank you for thinking about me and wanting to help me, I really appreciate it ten".

finally an update, sorry for the long wait for this chapter, i had a huge writers block but i pushed through it so i made sure to make it longer for you guys so i hope you like it. it's kind of emotional which i didn't expect tbh but oh well. tell me your opinion on tens past and what do you think about what he did. enjoy reading and as always comment vote and share the story, thanks for reading.

author-nim.