A Drop of Milk on the Chin
“It really has gone cold.”
Yoon-seol spoke while latching the month-old baby to her breast. By the bedside, her boyfriend—no, the baby’s father, Min-jae—looked away.
Where did the burning lips disappear to the day I told him I was pregnant?
The baby’s mouth still couldn’t quite hold the nipple, so milk spilled and traced the line of Yoon-seol’s jaw. One drop stiffening in the chilly air. That was all.
Min-jae reached out, then pretended to stroke the baby’s hair and withdrew. Every trace of warmth had already fled.
The Aftertaste of a First Kiss Lingering in the Smell of an Infant
Before she became a mother, she had her first kiss behind the back door of the second-floor PC room. The sweetness he left in her mouth after a sip of iced Americano still rises suddenly along her gums.
That sweetness has now mingled with the smell of breast milk and turned rotten, like bad eggs. After twenty-four-hour immersion in the nursery, she has come to hate the cigarette scent clinging to Min-jae’s body.
The reason was simple.
Last night Min-jae covered his ears against the baby’s cries and walked out. He came back at 3:17 a.m.—the first 3:17 a.m. since the birth. Between one scoop of formula and the sterilizing of a nipple, love began in earnest to cool.
A Strawberry-Flavored Teat and Spilt Breast-Milk on Min-jae’s Shoulder
From: Seo Yoon-seol (19)
To: Kim Min-jae (20)
Message: I’m weaning today.
Three hours later Min-jae replied, “Why?” During the seven minutes the baby dozed, Yoon-seol sat on the edge of the bed and said,
“If I stop nursing, you won’t have to touch me anymore.”
The baby still can’t pronounce “Mom,” yet Yoon-seol has already counted the word twenty-two times.
When Min-jae held the baby for the first time in two weeks, the child cried. Breast-milk soaked Min-jae’s shoulder—strawberry-milk scented.
Watching that, Yoon-seol suddenly wondered:
Would it be the baby’s misfortune to smell this scent on his father?
Between the First Shovel and One Scoop of Formula
Why do we obsess over the temperature of cooling bodies?
Before the baby, we met in secret every night. Behind the PC room, on the convenience-store roof, in the karaoke restroom. We were always the first to arrive in the hottest places.
We never imagined that heat could be placed in a refrigerator.
After childbirth, all heat is inside the bottle sterilizer: 100 °C. Yet kisses with Min-jae never rise above 36.5 °C.
Only ten months ago we were drunk on our first careless thrust. Now eight seconds—the time it takes to scoop formula—is all we have. In those eight seconds Min-jae checks his phone alarm and Yoon-seol listens for the baby’s breathing.
When We Began to Love, We Did Not Know Each Other’s Pain
Perhaps the cooling of a relationship means we have finally seen each other’s pain.
The day she became a mother, Yoon-seol thought involuntarily of Min-jae’s mother. He had once let slip that he’d been abandoned as a child. At the time Min-jae hadn’t cried; he had simply looked out the window.
The first time the baby smiled, Min-jae stared at that smile and murmured,
“Did my own mom ever look at me like this?”
Only then did Yoon-seol understand. Love had begun to cool the moment their wounds surfaced.
We looked into each other’s scars and lacked the courage to match them.
What Temperature Do You Still Want?
Psychologists say that couples who become parents in adolescence are trapped between the role of parent and lover. They remain suspended in neither heat nor cold—an absence of temperature.
Yet what we overlook is that this “absence” may in fact be the fiercest fever.
Last night Min-jae rested a hand above the baby’s head and wept without sound. Watching his back, Yoon-seol thought for the first time:
What exactly did I claim had gone cold? Love itself, or simply the time when we did not yet know each other?
The Baby Cuts a First Tooth While Love Continues
Yoon-seol texted Min-jae.
From: Seo Yoon-seol (19)
To: Kim Min-jae (20)
Message: Baby’s first tooth came in. Who gets to touch it first?
Min-jae hasn’t replied. Not because he missed the milestone, but because he still cannot write “we” instead of “who.”
When we say love has gone cold, has it truly cooled? Or have we simply run out of the courage to endure its heat?
What temperature is your love right now?