“Just three more hours—no, two.”
Jung-woo’s palm grew slick around the divorce agreement. On a single A4 sheet, Min-jae’s week lay diced into 168 tiny squares. He wanted to erase the 37 % with an eraser. Loving my son only 63 %—does that even make sense?
Next to him, Seo-yeon stood with folded arms. Her gaze was ice, yet the tremor in her upper lip told another story. The lawyer slid the papers across.
“Starting next week. Prepare the boy so he won’t feel—”
Seo-yeon cut in. “No. Starting today.” Her voice was a blade. Every breath Min-jae takes from this moment is mine to answer for.
The scent in the locked room
The first weekend Min-jae left for his father’s, Seo-yeon opened her son’s bedroom door. The quilt lay neat; on the desk, a half-built drone kit had hardened mid-assembly. She walked over and pulled the blanket to her face.
Min-jae’s scent—sweat, milk, and a ghost of chocolate—swirled.
“Mine.”
She whispered it, then flinched. Father’s house will steep this same scent. She spread the quilt again, terrified the fragrance would vanish; the windows stayed shut.
A man sating himself in secret
First night of their lone camping trip, Jung-woo lay in the tent. Min-jae, exhausted, slept, but sleep eluded the father. He studied his son’s fingers—short yet sturdy—then laid them inside his own palm.
“This part is only mine.”
He breathed the words and brushed his lips across the small knuckles. Yet the moment he did, Seo-yeon’s eyes flashed in his mind. Half this hand, this skin, this breath are hers.
He released the fingers—then seized them again, tighter.
Revenge of the 63 %
Seo-yeon got 63 % of her son. Each morning she combed Min-jae’s hair and tasted happiness. Still, she knew the 37 % void blackened every day.
Every Friday, as he left for his father’s, she wept in the hallway, watching his back recede.
“Can I take more?”
The desire was amputated by court decree.
Indulgence of the 37 %
Saturday 9 a.m., Jung-woo arrived to pick Min-jae up, smiling as he took the boy’s bag. Behind the smile, arithmetic: For the next nine hours, I am his entirety.
He drove to the drone shop; Min-jae’s eyes sparked, and the father claimed that shine as his own.
At lunch they shared fried chicken. Every bite the boy took, Jung-woo engraved on memory.
“This memory is ours alone.”
Yet the moment formed, the 63 % flitted across his mind like an afterimage.
The child was not there
Seven years passed. Min-jae, now a senior, drank with friends after the college entrance exam. At 2 a.m. he came home to two notes on the living-room table.
Mom: “Your 63 % grew too quiet.”
Dad: “Your 37 % kept expanding.”
Min-jae tore the notes and faced the bathroom mirror.
“Where did my 100 % go?”
That night he texted both parents.
“I don’t want even 0 %.”
A desire never tasted
Seo-yeon and Jung-woo wept in separate rooms when the message arrived. Yet desire did not dissolve.
Seo-yeon reopened Min-jae’s room. The quilt had lost its scent. She carried it toward the washer, then froze.
“It must not vanish.”
Jung-woo folded the tent his son would never sleep in again, fingertips lingering on the zipper Min-jae had touched.
“It was mine.”
They had lost the child, but the craving remained—no longer 63 % or 37 %, but an indelible, ravenous 100 %.
“I don’t want even 0 %.”