Looking at the stars, so far yet so close

The Lee Family
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A special thanks to Javie, Princess Hyu and LAJLover for their continuous support. Its weird bc we never met, but I loveeeee u so muchie!

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Mark had a feeling something felt weird with his Doyoung Uncle; their whole drive had been silent instead of the usual chatter Doyoung liked to do, and not even the sound of music could be heard out of the car stereo.

So, when their car stopped at a dessert park entrance, where he could  clearly see another expensive car parked, surrounded by bodyguards, he didn’t had to guess his uncle (and probably dad’s) intention.

He simply sighed, not even bothering to look at his uncle, opening the passenger door as his face felt the cool evening wind.

“At the swings. I will wait for u, anytime you wanna leave, love.” His uncle spoke softy, wanting to know that he had a choice to head back now if he wanted.

Mark looked back, “No schedule?” It was sarcasm, but he wasn’t really angry.

Doyoung looked back with an awkward smile: “No schedule. Only being there for you, love”

Mark looked into the direction of the park, sighing. “Since you and dad made such efforts, I won’t take long. Probably.”

Doyoung smiled; “Only because of our effort?”

Mark rolled his eyes at his uncle as he mumbeled: “Lying yet you dare to tease!”

Doyoung laughed as he still noticed the slightly pink cheeks of his angel. “Alright Alright, Uncle is wrong. I will make it up next time.”

Mark huffed: “There is still a next time?”

Doyoung’s laugh faded, his face getting serious: “Only if you want too. Uncle will support you in whatever you want to do…If agreed to this it is because I think you should always give it a shot Mark. Always. It does not mean it has to work. But at least you gave it a shot.”

Mark didn’t respond anything, as he still didn’t know if he was willing to give that shot. But he could still try, right? Mark closed the car’s door, ignoring the bodyguards at the Park’s entrance as he headed deeper into the park. He quickly arrived at the centre, where different play constructions were dressed, seeing his father sitting casually on one of the swings.

Mark looked at the back of the man that looked strangely sad in the moonlight, the wind playing with his blond hairlocks as he starred at the night sky. Mark looked at the other play constructions of the park, recognising the familiar sight as the sound of kids laughter and sunshine painted his memory.

 

Minhyun-ah look look!

Ya, are you a kid too? Be careful with our son!

Minhyun-ah your dad is such a no-jam person, let’s ask him to play with us too!

 

Minhyun-ah wanna go on the swings?

 

Hold tight, Minhyun-ah, one two three… hop!

 

Minhyun-ah! Ouri adeul!

 

Baby you can’t do that!

Alright Alright don’t cry, sshhhhh come here.

 

Baby you can’t cry, your daddy will kill me if he sees your tears!

Sshh, come give father a hug!

 

Mark closed his eyes, slowly opening them back; the night scenery came as it was, the memories gone, sinking back again into a quiet corner of his heart.

Mark walked towards his father, sitting without a word on the other swing.

 

 

Ten felt his presence way before he had sat on the swing. He had been busy looking at the night view, trying to organise his thoughts before the quick arrival of Doyoung that would follow, and his gaze drifted towards the familiar face of his son, cold yet so soft in the moonlight.

Taeyong always told him it was unfair Mark resembled him more, but Ten thought that Mark was the perfect combination of his and Taeyong’s best features; when Mark eyes were cold, they narrowed slightly, giving him the sharp and cold aura beauty that Taeyong had whenever he was serious. His long eyelashes and high cheekbones made the original cold face look a bit softer, as if Ten’s fiery aura genetics had melted the ice away. It was just perfect. He thanked Taeyong and God for that.

A short memory flashed, of a much more warmer and softer kid; and Ten sighed inwardly.
Why did kids grew up so quickly?

The memory faded away, leaving only the present Mark… but somehow it still felt the same. The same urge to protect, to hug, to love, to smile, to give everything away…for his sake. Somehow he still stayed that same kid in his heart memories…

He was perfect.
Just like lucas.  

“Congrats on winning your match.” Ten decided to break the silence first, knowing that he would have to fight a long way to see the smile of his memories again.

Mark’s eyes didn’t meet him as the kid stared at the night view, only nodding briefly as a sign he had heard him. Ten smiled, “Did you enjoy the food? It’s been a while since you ate Thai wasn’t it?”

There was no response, but Ten had not expected any.

“Your dad, is such a good cook, yet he only likes to cook Korean. Even back then, it was no different. I was way too lazy to cook Thai, so usually I would just bring you guys out to eat Thai when I carved for it.”  The memory made Ten smile go brighter. He remembered the only time Taeyong had prepared him Thai food. It had been their third anniversary.

“But when I left Korea, I could not help but cook Korean food myself. They do not have good Korean restaurants in Thailand. Or at least they do not have the dishes your dad cooked. Even Johnny doesn’t cook as good as your dad.”

Mark snorted as a spark of frustration could not help but emerge in his heart: “At least he is a better actor.”

Ten looked at his son in surprise, not thinking he would get a reaction so soon, before he realised the meaning of his words. “Wait you,…you have met him?”

Mark heard the surprise in his voice and he briefly glanced at his father, who looked like a frightened dear instead of his confident self he had shown in the restaurant. Ten had fought many scary people, and his reputation had become even more scarier than those scary people, yet in front of his son he became as mellow as fluff ball, scared at the slightest rejection he could receive.

If Ten’s entourage would be able to see him now,…they wouldn’t believe their eyes. Surely some of them would pinch themselves, and others would be frightened to death at Mark’s appearance, thinking his son was even more of a demon then his father.

Seeing that his father had probably not known of Johnny’s little meeting, Mark’s initial frustration desipated slightly as he nodded: “Yeah, picked us from school, proclaiming to be dad’s friend. He conveniently forgot the whole thing about cheating and stepfather status.”

Ten’s eyes widened more and a slight curse escaped his lips before he could stop it; “That damn Chicago boy, damn noisy parrot!”

Mark blinked his eyes, thinking he had heard something wrong. Parrot?

Ten realising he had said those words aloud, awkwardly scratched his head: “Ah sorry, I mean - I am sorry about him, he- I mean he shouldn’t have bothered you like that, but I guess he was just very curious about you,…” Ten felt quite lost, not knowing what to say and he seriously considered to kill a certain American man tonight.

Mark didn’t comment, looking back to the sky.

Ten wanted to cry inside as he cautiously “He wasn’t that bad….was he?”

This time Mark couldn’t help but snort, “His little lies aside, no. He managed to charm Jeno quite quickly, offering already to come play next time.”

That was it. He would commit murder tonight.

Ten looked at the ground, ah, wae wae wae? Really can’t things go into the right direction for once?

Mark looked from the corner of his eyes, seeing his father’s state he wondered if he had actually been too harsh…he had after all promised he would try to give this a shot, right?

Mark looked back to the sky, the stars were quite bright today, considering Seoul wasn’t exactly the greatest place to look at them, as the fog of pollution always covered the sky.

Ten was the one to break the silence again, the man clearly not giving up his fight; “I heard from your dad, there would be a dance class tomorrow…Mind if I join?”

Mark looked surprised at his dad, not expecting such a bold move.

Ten watched as his son stared at him, his eyes having a slim trace of surprise, but he could not read any enthousiasm. In the end his son shrugged: “Dad is already busy with his class, I don’t think he will have extra time to give attention at beginners.”

Ten blinked his eyes, not expecting such an answer, before a sudden realisation hit him. Ah I guess I stayed not enough long around for him to remember…Does he even remembers this place?

Ten smiled awkwardly: “That’s not a problem, I am pretty confident to keep up with you guys.” He was rusty sure, but good enough.

Mark eyed his father, thinking the man sure was persistent. Alright, he would give it a shot too.

Ten saw the slight change in Mark’s expression, and a glimmer of hope finally settled into his heart.

“Will you train for your next dance competition?” Ten asked, feeling a bit braver.

Mark blinked his eyes in surprise, before nodding. How did he know about the competition?

Ten smiled, not discouraged by the fact he was the one keeping this single-man discussion afloat: “What kind of routine is it this time?”

Mark fidgeted with his jeans, answering softy: “K-Pop and street hip hop”

Ten’s eyes glimmered at the mention of the routine: “How interesting, which song? Or did you do a remix?”

Mark found it strange, his father was asking those questions a bit too confidently, as if speaking of dance was his element. “Fire Truck by United”

“Ooh, the boyband your dad teaches, right? I am not familiar with this song though.”

Mark glanced at his father briefly, surprised his father was knowledgeable about their lives and curious how the man would continue this conversation.

“But if it resembles the 7th Sense song of last time, then I am curious about the choreo.”

Mark’s head whipped into the direction of his father in surprise: “How did you…”

Had his father seen his last competition? What in the world..???

Ten smiled softly; “What? It does not mean that because you couldn’t see me, I could not see you either. Being far away from you guys is painful enough, not seeing you guys at all would be just torture.”

Mark’s head went blank with this information, and his heartbeat became faster as he slowly found his voice back: “So you are allowed to see, but we can’t?” his soft voice surprised Ten who had not expected such a bitter tone.

Ten’s heart clenched at the sight of it: “If seeing me means that trouble would knock at your family’s home, would you still want to see me?”

Mark heard the hurt in his father’s soft whisper, and for the first time Mark longed to hug his father, just for a brief moment. Instead he answered: “Then what about now? Will it still bring trouble?”

Ten heard the mild tone of his son voice and even his usual cold eyes, seemed to be a bit softer.

Finding his voice back after his slight surprise, he could not help but feel even more hope; “Eh? No, of course not! I would never harm you or your father!”

Mark nodded, looking back at the night sky: “Then this time you don’t have any excuse; I won’t forgive you if you leave again.”

Ten stared for a good minute at his son face, a beautiful smile when he slowly understood the implicit message behind his son words. It was a start of forgiveness, and Ten felt like as long as he would continue to try, he may find back again that beautiful smile that he longed for.

 

 

 

 

Doyoung looked at the name that showed on the display of his phone, a small smile forming on his lips. He touched the accept call buton, swiftly clickling on the loud speaker function as well

“I did expect my fiancé to lose impatience first, why is it you who called me instead?”

The voice snorted; “You do not look surprised though, are you hyung?”

Doyoung smile widened; “Of course, I am your hyung. So why did you call, Jaehyun?”

Jaehyun teasing’s voice came out of his speaker; “What, hyung can’t guess that too?”

Doyoung snorted; “You know I can hang up any moment right?”

“You are too much.”

“Too much fabulous? I know that already, tell me something I don’t. Like what exactly do you wannna hear?”

Jaehyun wisely decided to ignore the first part as he said; “You knew Ten would be present, right?”

“Hmm…angry I did not tell you?”

“I suppose Tae asked you to keep it a secret.” Jaehyun just sighed.

“Hmm…You could say it like that.”

“And I supposed you do not have any schedule right now?” Jaehyun ‘s tone a had a sligh trace of accusation.

Doyoung smiled; “Since you know already everything, why do you need me?”

“Why did you agree?” Jaehyun’s voice was no more than a whisper.

“Aha, I could tell you that I suppose, but why should I not agree?”

“…” Jaehyun was silent for a moment before he spoke, “ I thought you hated Ten.”

“Me??? Hating who?” Doyoung was quite surprised of such an answer.

“You know… for hurting Tae and..”

“Wait a moment.” Doyoung interrupted him. “First of all: yes, I was biased towards Tae, because he is my brother. But me and Ten were quite the good friends. Both parties were hurt, and I did not meddle because like I said, I am biased. Which doesn’t mean I take a party or something, I just can’t judge properly.”

Doyoung cared about family. But he had always cared about his own principles as well and one of them was fairness. In fact one of the reasons why Doyoung became such close friends with Ten was because he knew of all the things the Thai prince had done behind Tae’s back to protect him. So, when Ten had announced his love for someone else, Doyoung could not really be angry at him, the only emotion he felt was sadness. Sadness for his younger brother and sadness that things didn’t work out as expected.

“Second; I always support Tae in what he does, so yeah I did not like to talk about Ten at that time because my priority was Tae, and opening his still fresh wounds was not on my agenda. Third, I actually stayed in contact with Ten for quite a while. So, to answer your question: no I do not hate Ten.”

“…I see…” Jaehyun took a while to understand Doyoung’s words. “So I guess you know why he also never came back… until now?”

Doyoung sighed. “Yeah, I knew a part of the story way before as I kept contact with him…” Of course Doyoung had tried to reunite Mark with his father a long time ago. But things were complicated and even he couldn’t change certain things despite the power his family had…

“As for the other missing pieces of the puzzle…Tae told them to me a few days ago after his first encounter with Ten. You know how sensible Tae is, so I suspected that Ten had made things more…okay then they were. I called him and we talked privately at a place.”

Jaehyun hummed. “Would it be too noisy if I asked for it too?”

Doyoung sighed. “Its not a story I would feel comfortable telling you…But maybe...It depends as who are you asking this? As Tae ex-lover? Or as Mark’s Appa?”

Jaehyun voice was soft. “As Mark’s father…And as family of Tae.”

Doyoung hummed, already knowing what the answer would be. “I see…I guess that does deserve some explanation…But I will leave it to you, if problem arise because of this.”

Jaehyun snorted, wondering if Yuta had made his hyung temperament even worse. than usual... Ah, who told those two devils to be a thing? 

“Sure, hyung.”

 

 

 

The story was quite complicated. In fact, it all started with the Thai royal family. Ten was the only son of the Thai king, but he was not the only heir to the throne. Which made things quite complicated, because of the high expectations of Ten’s parents and the viciousness of the other heirs towards Ten.

The king and queen of Thai were already used to Ten escaping his royal duties, even letting him go as far as Korea to study and dance. Ten may be playful, he was intelligent and performed academically good enough to satisfy his parent’s other expectations. Yet the arrival of Ten’s boyfriend didn’t please them.

For once, it was a boy; Which annoyed them because Ten was supposed to have an heir.

Second, it was a person out of their social circle, which would be not help their son for his position as the heir.

And third, it was not even a Thai person, which would make things difficult for their people to accept.

So yeah, they didn’t appreciate Taeyong in the least. But thinking it would be a short crush, that would soon end when Ten would graduate, coming back to Thailand, they let their stubborn son do his thing. That was the exact reason why Ten never told them about anything, when Taeyong proposed to make a family together; he knew his child wouldn’t survive if his parents would hear of it.

The end result was that Mark’s birth came to a bomb to his parents. At first his mother wanted to disown him, but after some back-and-forth yelling and arguments, his mother came to Korea where she eventually fell in love with her grandson. Granted she was still pissed at her son, and eyed Taeyong like she could devour him. But that’s how Mark’s birth stayed a secret to his family, for except his parents who registered the child secretly into the royal family register.

When Taeyong’s divorce news cam, Ten’s parent were probably the only ones that felt relief and happiness. Not only had their son no connections towards Lee taeyong anymore, Ten’s new partner was even better then the candidates that they had prepared; he was the heir of SM group, had already a son of his own out of his previous marriage with the daughter of a quite renowed Chinese corporation too and he was no stranger towards Thai politics.

His overall power and background was a perfect match in their eyes! The only matter that needed to be settled was Mark.

Ten’s mother had grown quite attached to the kid, and truthfully the kid looked like his father so much, an adorable angel that would always smile towards them, even the King had a soft spot for his first and only grandson. So of course, she wanted to take Mark back to Thailand.

Which was the exact moment started his long- ride battle; he gave up his parental rights on the kid, did not fill his divorce paper directly but stayed out of Mark’s and Taeyong proximity for a year. Even if his mother had money and the best advocates, Ten added double; and with the fact that he had given up his rights and had not been present during the critical time, Ten advocates managed to make the court give custody of Mark to Taeyong.

To say Ten’s mother was enraged would be an understatement. Ten however couldn’t care less. Both of them were in a cold war, and during that whole period when his mother still tried to apply for the court, Ten was obliged to stay far away of his family, not wanting to give any excuse for his mother to take the child back.

Ten’s first battle ended with the sudden disease of his father; it had been quick and unexpected. Chaos came into the Thai family, and his mother seeing the bigger picture had no choice but to ignore the differences she had with her son, as her priority was getting him a secure place on the throne.

After a fierce struggle, politically and socially, Ten became King of Thailand a year after his father’s death.

Just as things had setteled down, Ten had even been on the point of contacting Taeyong, another struggle came. Ten’s maternal Uncle died, and as he had been into a cold war with his younger brother, he left all his rights as the heir of the 7SENSE, their familial pharmaceutical giant corporation, towards his younger sister who had married into the Thai royal family.

But as Ten’s mother had given her maiden name as a betrothed gift towards the late king, those rights fell into Ten’s hands. Who was the 7SENSE? It was a Canadian billion company, with lots of connection around the globe. Not only was Ten’s maternal family unwilling, even his paternal family was eying the throne again with heated eyes. Needless to say, a long battle of economical strategies, political schemes, and assassination attempts happened.

Ten barely had time left for Johnny and Lucas, as every second he had to keep his guard up, handling matters personally as his reign was still fresh and fragile; he had yet to build up confidants and alliances, and surprisingly it was his mother who assisted him the most. She even gave up her idea on Mark, as she wanted her son to concentrate on the long battle, not wanting to distract him or burden him. Johnny was one of his greatest support, even involving his own company to assist Ten as much as he could, disregarding the political consequences and controversies.

How would Ten be able to only endure? He fought brilliantly back, using ruse and force yet he was overwhelmed by both his families. Of course when you are at you wekaes, there are always other people trying to get you in the middle of chaos. Those days felt like a never ending battle; schemes, nearly succefull abduction, assasination attempts, food poissoning, economical pressures, law issues,... 

During one of those days, his relatives even used the poor innocent Lucas to lure him into a trap, nearly succeeding into killing him.

He was lucky, and ended up 2 months in a coma, before waking up with some serious injuries.

Lucas was safe and well, as the boy was after all no danger towards his relatives.

Ten didn’t want to imagine if his relatives knew of Mark’s existence....what would have happened? The boy was Ten’s only biological son, making him the only legitim heir, unlike Lucas, which could be a potential threat… Killing an innocent more wouldn’t really bothered them, so Ten did everything to keep his existence a secret.

He only contacted Taeyong through email, emails he send through Johnny who made sure to send it through different VPN’s and security systems, so that they could not be traced back or leak.

Johnny was also the one who looked after Mark and Taeyong during that dark period, reporting everything to Ten when the night was deep when they watched Lucas mumble into his sleep, the only moment they had to themselves without worrying to much.

During Ten’s comma, his mother revealed how much of a demoness she could be (making Ten wonder if he perhaps took more after his mother than he thought), making sure those persons who made that horrible trap, payed thrice the price for hurting her only son. Ten recover thus without any danger, and with Johnny’s anger and his mother rage he managed to settle back everything in place after three years of struggle and fight.

Sure, there were still some people who eyed his life, but Ten wanted to see them dare to fight first, h

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jaemin09 #1
Chapter 1: Chapter 1: 2023. Always comeback for this masterpiece
Star_Dancer #2
Chapter 20: Cant help but keep, rereading and rereading in and reading this fic! It’s my all time favourite and I just love it so so so so much!
aghostboo #3
back at it again with this fic 😩💖 my all time favorite and comfort fic, makes me happy all the time
bkhynkzz
#4
Chapter 20: Why did jaehyun & taeyong divorce? ?
123manju #5
Chapter 1: no matter how many times I reread this, i will never get tired of it
Rosieperi #6
Chapter 45: Kinda sad it's over but hey sequel!!!!
Felt like rollercoaster and loved all those family fluffs.
Nct 127 "Not Alone" is like OSt to this fic
Claudy1410 #7
Chapter 45: thank you
bkhynkzz
#8
Chapter 20: Reading in front of table fan so my tears won't fall
bkhynkzz
#9
Chapter 19: The most words mark had talk so far ?