Chasing Perfection || Lee Know

An Altar made of Skin

GUYS! Please tell me if this chapter is a bit too intense, or anything, please please vocalise your thoughts and opinions
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The silence was suffocating.

Minho sat beside her, close but not touching, his hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles had turned white. He was holding himself back—she could feel it in the way his whole body was tense, like he was bracing for a blow.

And maybe he should.

Because after all this time, after all the unanswered questions and the nights she had spent wondering what went wrong—he had finally given her the truth.

But now that it was out in the open, neither of them knew what to do with it.

Hyejin exhaled shakily, forcing herself to look at him. "I should be angry at you," she said quietly. "I was angry at you."

Minho's throat bobbed as he swallowed. "I know."

"You just left," she continued, her voice tight. "Without a word, without an explanation. I spent so long thinking I wasn't—"

She cut herself off, but it was too late.

Minho's head snapped up, his entire body going rigid. His fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach for her but didn't dare.

"You weren't what?" he asked, voice hoarse.

Hyejin hesitated, then let out a breath. "Enough."

Minho's entire world tilted.

His breathing turned unsteady, and his grip on his hands finally loosened—only to flex, like he was fighting the urge to reach for her. His jaw clenched, and for the first time since he walked back into her life, she saw it—

The regret. The guilt. The absolute agony in his eyes.

His lips parted, but no sound came out at first. He looked like he wanted to say something—anything—but couldn't.

Hyejin's fingers curled tighter into the blanket, the only indication that her own words hurt just as much as they hurt him.

"I thought," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper now, "that maybe if I had been different—softer, easier to love—maybe then..."

Her voice cracked.

She closed her eyes, inhaling shakily before finishing—

"Maybe then you would have stayed."

Minho stopped breathing.

For a long, painful moment, he couldn't move. Couldn't think.

Then—

His body moved before his mind could catch up.

He slid off the edge of the bed, lowering himself down, down, until his knees met the floor.

Hyejin's breath hitched.

She watched him, wide-eyed, as he knelt before her, hands fisting into the blanket, shoulders trembling under the weight of everything he hadn't said yet.

But he wasn't desperate.

No—this wasn't desperation. This wasn't begging.

This was reverence.

Minho knelt for her not because he was lost, but because she was it. The answer, the truth, the center of his universe. Minho didn't just kneel—he fell to his knees for her, like gravity itself had given up on him. Like there was no other place for him to be but here, at her feet, looking up at her as if she was the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.