3

 

 

 

TORONTO, CANADA, 20:00PM

It was in the month of July; a light breeze was blowing on the empty hallway of Toronto.

Mark didn’t move, his lashes fluttered and he felt that his whole body was shaking and shivering and it was not because of the cold night.

His heart was hammering into his chest. He was frozen on his spot as he watched with wide eyes as his dear old friend took out a knife out of a person’s eye without even flinching.

Mark watched as he took out the knife which was dripping with blood. Mark's eyes were burning with more shock rather than fear.

 

A fear that almost unmanned him.

 

Haechan just sighed as he wiped off the blood off the knife with his bared hands, “That was my favorite knife and now I need to disinfect it.”

He shook his head as if it was just a sort of routine for him. He wiped it off and spin the knife into his hand before putting it back into a small pocket by his ankle.

He then looked back at Mark who was still frozen, “You alright there Mark?” He was just asking casually.

Mark opened his mouth to say something, but nothing could come out. He was frantic with shock as the color drained from his face.

 

*******

 

A gunshot was heard along scream was heard and Haechan looked back to see one of the guys that had attacked Mark falling on the ground, this time definitely dead. “Oh, thanks for the help.”

A man came out of the shadows as he was putting the gun back in the holder, “I thought you know when the danger would be coming.”

The man smiled and shaking his head a bit. Mark’s eyes widen more to the point that it looked it would come out of his sockets.

“Well I knew you were watching my back.” He said while shrugging a bit. Mark was just standing there as he watched those two having a normal conversation as if they just didn’t kill these people in front of him. The fear choked him and he was mute with horror.

The other man was tall, much taller than them both at least. But that burnt scar over his face is what got him more shocked. That famous smile of his which fans called as the smile that could cure cancer and brightened anyone days.

He was wearing a white shirt which had a black leather jacket that matched very well with his black jeans.

When that man saw Mark, his face expressions change to a big bright smile, the same one he used to see every single day during his idol days.

He ruffled his dark hair a bit as he smiled got bigger, “I am really happy to see you again Mark.” He grinned; his perfect eye smiles made him even more beautiful.

Yuta Nakamoto didn’t changed an inch; he was a bit older but that perfect smile of his was eternal.

Mark fainted.

*******

 

Both men blinked one then twice as they stood over his body. “Did he just fainted?” Yuta asked while looking at him.

 Haechan just shook his head, “No he just- “ He sighed, “I got no comeback.”

Yuta laughed a bit, “Well he got even more handsome and manlier.” The years come and goes but one of the things that will never change will forever be Yuta’s obsession towards Mark Lee.

Haechan shhook his head, "There are just some things that will never change."

“Did you bring us here to die?”

“Obviously,” Yuta replied plainly.

Haechan just sighed and shook his head. “I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic or not.”

He sat down next to the bed where Mark was laying down and looked over him. Mark had really changed a lot over these years, his features got more sharper but the man he saw in that alleyway who was fighting was not the same Mark he knew.

 

They all changed but they had to go through dirt first before raising back again.

 

Mark groaned a bit as he started to slowly opened his eyes. Haechan’s eyes lit up a bit, “He’s waking up.” He exclaimed a bit while smiling softly.

Mark opened his eyes and blinked repeatedly before getting used to the lights in the room. He held his head and cursed under his breath.

“Are you alright?” Yuta asked softly.

For a man so adept at killing, his eyes were remarkably soft when he looked at Mark.

He flinched a bit at the voice and look to see two men, his two friends and old colleagues, Haechan and Yuta looking at him. There was a long silence and neither one of the three men talked. Mark was just looking at them with a shocked expression.

Like how he was to reacted after he just saw his two ex-members beating and killing few people like its nothing when back in the days they were complaining about the cockroaches in their company. Not to forget the fact that there was a big cut over the corner of Haechan’s lips while Yuta had a burnt scar over a quarter of his eye that went down a bit to his cheek.

 

How was he supposed to react?

 

“Mark?” Haechan asked a bit hesitantly.

“Are you there?” Yuta questioned.

He was still looking at the man who was now sitting on the bed and just looking at them. Haechan sighed, “Mark listen I know you’re in a state of shocked but.”

He bit his lips hesitating a bit as Mark’s eyes lit up to look at him, “We need to talk.”

Yuta then brought some water for Mark to drink and he sat on the other chair that he had dragged and placed next to Haechan. Mark lips parted opened a bit, “What happened to you guys?” his voice was tired and weak. He looked at Haechan’s and Yuta’s scar.

He has always kept on a strong demeanor in front of people and the only ones who saw his weak self was s, so no matter the conditions right now. He felt at ease.

“Mark….” Yuta started, “First of all I am really sorry for what had happened to you.” Yuta got quiet a bit, “We…we should have been here for you after what had happened.”

Mark’s eyes softened a bit, “Guys its fine. It has been years already.”

“But why are you guys here? After what had happened, we had made the promise to not meet each other again.”

NCT didn’t disband because of a mutual agreement like it was said they were forced to.

Some of their lives started to fall apart after the disbandment.

Mark’s case was one of the worst. After he had left, he had tried to get back in the industry, but SM had told him not to. His parents had encouraged him to continue so as not to waste such a golden talent and he tried to sign into another agency, but SM didn’t like that.

The debts of debuting as an idol that he had already paid appeared again and he had to pay for it again.

SM was a strong company; it would have been like trying to go against the government if he had tried to go against them plus with the fact that he had no agency behind him, and he didn’t want to use his dad company.

But then his dad had found out and had paid for everything that his son had to pay, this had made his father company to go in debt. The pressure was too much that one day Mark had come home to find both of his parent dead.

 

They had killed themselves and had left a suicide letter behind them.

 

This was on the day he got attacked and where the stranger that has given him the will to live had saved his life.

Haechan sighed, “Mark we have something to tell you. Your parents….” He got quiet. But then he took a deep breath and look at Mark in a serious manner.

This was really strange for Mark because compare to the Haechan of the old days who was just like an idiot messing around, this person was someone completely different.

“Your parents didn’t killed themselves. It was set up as a suicide.”

 

*******

 

As soon as these words left Haechan’s mouth, Mark felt his whole world crashing down. What did he meant by that? It wasn’t a suicide? What? How? But most importantly why?

 

“Guys what the hell are you –“ Mark started to get a bit irritated but Yuta cut him off.

“Listen Mark.” He said calmly. “I get it you’re confused but listen carefully to what we’re about to tell you.”

“All of what happened to each and every one of us as you know is because of SM. They had not only set up Taeyong’s death, but they had also set a lot of traps into our life. They are the ones who wanted to destroy you and.”

Yuta look back at Haechan then back at Mark, “They had set up the death of your parents as a suicide.”

 

Mark was shock and his eyes were wide open, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

One moment he had to get over the fact that he just saw two of his friends killing some people to save him and kill then as if it was a routine for them and the next they are telling him that SM had set up the death of his parents.

“Mark I.” Haechan tried to approach him but he pushed his arm away and stayed into nothingness as he let everything sank down.

“You need time and we understand that. Just rest here and we will talk later.” Haechan said calmly before leaving the room with Yuta.

As he closed the door, he looked at Mark and saw how dejected he looked, he has been through a lot, but he was still standing strong, but he could also see how lonely and sad he looked.

Why did they end up like that?

It has already been about two hours that Yuta and Haechan were waiting in the living room which Mark was still in the bedroom in a state of shock. They both had been really quiet.

Yuta sighed and stood up, “I will go check on him.”

Haechan grabbed him by his arm, “Give him time. We just dumped all this information on him like that. Leave him some time to digest everything.” Yuta sighed and just sat back down.

 

*******

 

The silence was broken again by the door creaking open and Mark coming out of the room.

They two men sitting down tensed up a bit as they saw Mark’s cold demeanor. He approached them and sat down, “Now I want to know the whole truth. But first why are you two together?” His voice was cold, and his face expression was emotionless.

“What had happened to you also had happened to us. In some ways, after having gone against them and although we had disbanded for the greater good, SM had messed up our life as well. Those who could have got out of it had done so but the others like us just couldn’t.”

Haechan then look at Mark who was very calm while listening to him. he looked up at both of them, “What had happened I don’t regret it.

It was our duty to protect them both as members but as their older brother.”

Yuta nodded, “They knew that some would have obviously not kept quiet about it so that’s why they had destroyed our life like that. So that if we do say something, they will say that we were upset about our contract ending and that we are just wanting more money.”

Mark nodded, “Plus.” He scoffed a bit, “Some of the seniors were in that too. They would have said something and made us like the bad person in this whole thing.”

NCT were a new group along with their many subunits. But one day, the director had called YangYang and Jisung to his office. The two went there but when they came back to their respective dorm, they were really quiet.

 

Liu YangYang being quiet and alone in his room was something astonishing.

 

He wasn’t smiling or laughing he was just quiet; this was like a red alarm to everyone.

When anyone would try to talk to him, he would just be quiet.

 

*******

 

Even their pets had sense something was wrong with him. one of their cats, Louis came up to him and started to rubbed her head against his leg.

This was like a trigger; it was the first time they saw YangYang crying like that.

They all gathered next to him and when Ten sat next to YangYang, he immediately snuggled closer and cried. Ten patted his back to comfort him, asking him what was wrong and what had happened, but he was just crying.

Ten then pulled away and look at the crying face of their youngest member. His tears kept flowing and he was hiccupping a bit as his mouth was slightly opened. This was tearing the heart of each of them to see him like that.

“What happened YangYang?” Ten asked softly while the rest huddled closer to him on the couch.

YangYang with his hands shaking just took out his phone and played a recording and give it to them.

 

*******

 

This was the recording that started everything.

“Okay ,guys so I am recording this just for fun as me and Jisung got called at the director’s office. Who knows maybe we are going to be finally having a collab?”

Both of their laughter could be heard.

“Like okay ,I will be leaving this recording on like so I can have like the first time I got called for something important like it will be so cool I will like to show it to my members even.”

They all could feel his happiness and usual excitement radiating from the audio itself. Some shuffling could be heard as he might be putting the phone back into his pocket while he was snickering with Jisung.

They entered the office and the conversation that they were having with the director were quite normal until.

“So, one of our sponsors want to meet you YangYang. A little performance for him might be really a good benefit for our company.” The tone he was saying it felt a bit wrong and all the members frowned and continued on listening.

They heard the enthusiastic voice of YangYang, “Oh yes I believe that would be a great opportunity as well. I have actually written a lot of songs that have good potential – “

The man cut him off, “I don’t mean in that way.”

YangYang got quiet, “What do you mean?”

 

“You know sometimes you have to work hard on your knees to get what you want.”

 

Everyone froze as they heard that sentence and immediately understood what he meant. Everyone was silence and the only thing that could be heard was the silent sobs of their youngest.

“Sir that’s something not funny I cannot agree to this.” They could feel from the voice that YangYang was feeling extremely uncomfortable and the silence of Jisung was worrying as well.

The man laughed a bit, “I thought you were a hardworking one. Didn’t you say you’d work hard to achieve your dreams? Such a pretty face like you two can go far if you just obeyed.” They all felt like vomiting as they noticed how the director’s voice is sounding like a e.

They heard a sound, as if someone stood up, “Sir I cannot agree to your request and I refused as well as Jisung. This is not right.” His voice was cracking. They could feel that he was terrified. “I am not someone like that and neither is Jisung, we won’t sell ourselves like that for fame.”

The man chuckled a bit, “You know that you signed a contract with our company. Now you understand why its called a slave contract. You belong to us and you should obey each and every of our orders. If not. There would be consequences.”

“I think we will just leave.” He stuttered a bit and all they heard next was the footsteps of two people walking quickly away and a door closing behind them as they started to run.

The recording ended.

To sat that they all saw red was an understanding. Lucas was the first one to stood up, everyone could feel the deadly aura that was surrounding him. he was mad, no he was enraged as to how they could treat him like that.

Lucas knew that that Chinese members were always treated badly but this time it was just over the top.

He hurriedly made his way to the door with his hands clenched into a fist.

He stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, “Listen Lucas don’t.”

 

Lucas scoffed, “How can you be so calm Kun?” He turned around angrily but he got quiet with his angry demeanor as he saw that Kun just like the others were fuming with anger, their eyes were cold really cold. Ten looked more loathing.

YangYang was hiding into Ten’s neck and was slightly shaking as Ten caressed his hair lightly. He looked up at Lucas, “Kun is right. If we just go and act like that it won’t do good.”

 

“So, we just sit there and do nothing?” Lucas said enraged. Everyone was silent, it was their first time that they were facing something like that.

They knew about this kind of thing happenings in the American Music Industry, but they never expected it to happen within their industry and most specifically their company who was known to be the best in South Korea.

“I am going to call Baekhyun.” Ten said as he took his phone with one hand while the other one was still wrapped around YangYang. He called Baekhyun but he wasn’t picking up. He kept on calling but still no answer but then he remembered that he might be preparing for his solo photoshoots for their SuperM Comebacks.

He tried to call Taemin but still no response as he was doing his solo promotions for his comeback.

“ing hell I forgot they all have their schedules today.” They couldn’t go report that because come on they knew too well how it would be like. Apart from the members of SuperM they didn’t know much people.

But then his phone started to ring, Ten looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Taeyong. He picked it up immediately, “

“Hey, Ten. Is everything okay on your side? Jisung came back to his dorm but Haechan called me and told me that he locked himself in his room and could hear him crying. Did YangYang said anything about what happened at their meeting?” Taeyong voice sounded worried.

 

Ten took a deep breath and it was even shaking a bit as he was trying to contain his anger and to not explode, “Listen carefully to me Taeyong."