Something About 1%

Everything you need to know before you hit play.

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Something About 1%

1%의 어떤 것 (1%ui Eoddungut) · 2016 · South Korea

WriterHyun Go-woon

DirectorKang Cheol-woo

Episodes16 eps · ~40 min each

Where to Watch✅ Viki

⏱️

Binge Time10h 40m

AiredOct 5 – Nov 24, 2016

GenreRomantic Comedy · Romance · Drama

Content Rating15+

Viki

Contract RelationshipChaebolLove-Hate RelationshipTeacher Female LeadRemake

One box. Everything you need to decide.

The reluctant pair that proves contracts can become something real.

Ha Seok-jin

Lee Jae-in

Lead

Jeon So-min

Kim Da-hyun

Lead

Im Do-yoon

Jung Hyun-jin

Supporting

Lee Hae-in

Soo-jung

Supporting

Kim Sun-hyuk

Park Hyung-joon

Supporting

Seo Eun-chae

Han Joo-hee

Supporting

Kim Hyung-min

Min Tae-ha

Supporting

Cho Jae-ryong

Kang Dong-suk

Supporting

Ju Jin-mo

Lee Gyu-chul

Supporting

Lee Kan-hee

Kang Se-hee

Supporting

Baek Seung-heon

Ji-su

Supporting

Park Jin-joo

Han Yoo-kyung

Supporting

Spoiler-light recaps — enough to remember where you left off, nothing that ruins the ride.

EP 01

Episode 1

Oct 5, 2016

Lee Jae-in has never been told no by anyone who worked for him — which makes Kim Da-hyun’s reaction the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in years. She mistakes him for a marriage scammer (fair, given how he operates), and the contract relationship gets forced on them from a baseline of complete mutual disdain. The show establishes both characters correctly in the first episode: he buys his way through problems; she won’t be bought.

EP 02

Episode 2

Oct 6, 2016

Their contract dates are functional disasters — they argue through every one of them. What episode two is actually tracking is the first sign that Jae-in’s behavior around Da-hyun is becoming slightly less automatic. He doesn’t stop being arrogant; he just shows up differently. Da-hyun doesn’t miss this, and she doesn’t soften in response either, which is what makes her such a good foil — she gives him exactly as good as she gets.

EP 03

Episode 3

Oct 12, 2016

Jae-in attempts to run a normal date, which goes approximately as well as a man who has never had one would manage. The more interesting part is what he’s starting to notice — Da-hyun’s honesty reads as unusual to him in the way that only happens when someone has been surrounded by people who manage their words carefully. He’s not adjusting yet. He’s just starting to pay closer attention.

EP 04

Episode 4

Oct 13, 2016

Da-hyun’s friend Hyun-jin recalibrates dramatically once she understands the scale of Jae-in’s wealth. More significantly, Min Tae-ha arrives — Jae-in’s cousin showing interest in Da-hyun — introducing the first real external pressure on an arrangement that wasn’t supposed to produce real feelings. Competition does what it always does: forces Jae-in to stop being passive about what he might actually want.

EP 05

Just Like Everyone Else; Starting To Do Things I’ve Never Done

Oct 19, 2016

Jae-in decides to actually try, which turns out to be a different thing from what he was doing before. His world has been so comprehensively managed — curated, deferential, fake — that Da-hyun’s straightforward version of herself registers as genuinely refreshing. He’s not in love with her yet. But episode five is the one where he stops treating their contract dates as administrative tasks.

EP 06

Episode 6

Oct 20, 2016

Da-hyun’s family becomes aware of the relationship and their response is concern rather than excitement — the correct one, given the gap in circumstances. Jae-in’s reaction to people questioning the arrangement reveals something he hasn’t shown before: he’s protective, and the protectiveness is starting to come from somewhere other than ownership. The episode lets the social pressure exist without resolving it cheaply.

EP 07

The Meaning of a Gift — From a Mere Memory to a Treasured One

Oct 26, 2016

Da-hyun plans a birthday celebration for Jae-in and discovers he has never had one — not from neglect in any conventional sense, but because that’s simply how his world has always run. The moment where this lands is the show’s best scene so far: Da-hyun watching him encounter something ordinary like it’s foreign. It shifts their dynamic from reluctant tolerance to something closer to genuine understanding.

EP 08

Episode 8

Oct 27, 2016

The new phone is Jae-in’s version of saying he wants to be reachable. Da-hyun’s parents arrange a dinner that includes her colleague Min Sun-woo — a strategic move that forces Jae-in to be explicit about what he is to her. He handles it with the specific awkwardness of someone who has never had to compete for anything before and finds the experience both irritating and clarifying.

EP 09

Episode 9

Nov 2, 2016

The playful arguments have stopped feeling like arguments. They still technically disagree on most things, but the chemistry underneath has become impossible to ignore — especially to Jae-in. His reaction to the idea of Da-hyun on a blind date is visceral jealousy that arrives before he’s caught up to the reason. The episode’s pleasure is in watching two people refuse to name what’s obviously in the room.

EP 10

Episode 10

Nov 3, 2016

Min Tae-ha’s approach shifts from ambient interest to something more direct, and Jae-in’s response drops any remaining pretense — he makes it explicit that Da-hyun is his, framed as commitment rather than possession. Tae-ha functions here less as a genuine threat and more as a catalyst who finally forces Jae-in to say out loud what he’s been deciding quietly for weeks.

EP 11

Do You Want to See This Through Until the End?

Nov 9, 2016

Da-hyun discovers that both Jae-in and Tae-ha initially pursued her because of Chairman Lee’s will — that the arrangement was never the accident she thought it was. Tae-ha she forgives cleanly. Jae-in she holds to a different standard, which is its own kind of admission. Episode eleven’s question is the one the whole show has been building toward: what becomes real when real wasn’t the starting condition?

EP 12

Her Absence — It Feels Like My Heart Is Going to Disappear

Nov 10, 2016

A drunken Da-hyun tells Jae-in what she actually wants — a relationship built on love, not logistics. The confession that follows from him isn’t performed for anyone; it arrives because the alternative is saying nothing, and he’s no longer capable of that. The contractual arrangement becomes something both people have to choose. It’s handled with enough restraint to make the emotional payoff feel proportional.

EP 13

Episode 13

Nov 16, 2016

Han Joo-hee’s kidnapping plot is the show escalating in the way chaebol dramas tend to — external danger as a test of commitment. Jae-in’s response is decisive and immediate: someone for whom Da-hyun’s safety is non-negotiable. The danger passes quickly but does what it needs to. He shows up for her without being asked, which is the only proof this kind of episode ever needs to deliver.

EP 14

A Lie — Will Time Really Heal Me?

Nov 17, 2016

The six-month contract ending is supposed to make the separation clean. It doesn’t. Jae-in ends the relationship believing it’s right for Da-hyun — that staying means asking her to pay a price he doesn’t want her to pay. The episode earns its heartbreak because the audience knows he’s wrong and also knows he believes it completely. Sacrificial love as the villain of a happy story is a specific kind of pain.

EP 15

I Love You — The True Feelings That He Revealed Too Late

Nov 23, 2016

Both of them go on blind dates they don’t want. Hyun-jin and Tae-ha push from the outside; Jae-in eventually needs no pushing. His confession is the opposite of restrained — he’s been holding it too long. Da-hyun’s acceptance condition is the most revealing detail of her character: she wants to keep teaching, and she wants his family to accept her. She’s already thought about what choosing him actually requires.

EP 16

One Percent of Luck — The Person Who Makes Me Perfect

Nov 24, 2016

The finale distributes its happiness carefully. Both families come around; Da-hyun recognizes Chairman Lee as the man she once helped; the wedding is small enough to feel real. The pregnancy is additional joy rather than the point of the ending. Hyun-jin and Tae-ha getting their own beginning is a quiet grace note. The show ends exactly where it promised it would — and makes the getting-there feel worth it.

Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.

How it resolves The contractual arrangement that started everything becomes genuine marriage. Jae-in proposes after the failed separation, Da-hyun accepts with her own conditions — she keeps teaching, his family accepts her — and the wedding happens with both families eventually present. Chairman Lee is recognized by Da-hyun as the elderly man she once helped, which closes the circle precisely: her act of ordinary kindness was the structural reason the entire story exists.

The second couple Hyun-jin and Tae-ha finding each other is the ending’s most satisfying move. Both were largely defined by proximity to the main romance — the best friend, the rival cousin — and the show gives them a real beginning without making it feel like consolation. It works because the drama has been careful to make them actual characters rather than just plot functions. Their ending arrives quietly and earns its moment.

What the characters become Jae-in’s arc closes on a man who learned to want something he couldn’t buy, and then decided he wouldn’t accept not having it. Da-hyun’s closes on someone who chose to stay on her own terms — the life is hers as much as it is his. The pregnancy is the show’s way of saying the abundance is real. The people who went into the contract arrangement as strangers leave it having chosen each other, which is all the ending ever needed to prove.

The contract as structure Something About 1%’s recurring argument is that real feelings can develop inside constructed arrangements — that formal terms don’t prevent informal truth from growing. The will and the six-month contract are irrelevant by the finale. What the show spent sixteen episodes demonstrating is that proximity, honesty, and genuine attention can transform the most transactional starting point into something neither party planned for.

The KDW verdict The ending is comfortable rather than surprising, and that’s exactly right. Something About 1% knows precisely what kind of drama it is — a warmly executed contract romance with strong lead chemistry — and the finale delivers on that promise without overreaching. Happy endings that feel genuinely earned are rarer than they sound. This one does.