The Heat of Connection

Episode 1: The Cry of the Mouse and the Weak Flames of Peat

"Riku, touch this.
" My ninety-year-old grandfather, Eiichi, paused his hands as he entered prompts into a generative AI, pointing to a spot right next to his sleek tablet.

On the screen, active project data for a"1950s Seikan Ferry 3D modeling reconstruction"

that he was working on alongside the AI scrolled smoothly.

Using AI image generation and 3D rendering, Eiichi was meticulously recreating the contours of the port and the rusty texture of the ship's hull from his own memories.

There sat a small, worn, paulownia-wood box. Riku lifted his fingers from his smartphone screen.

On his display shined a short message and a cute sticker sent by his girlfriend, Yui.

"OK" "What about tonight?"

A single sticker was sent, and the exchange ended in an instant.

An interaction completed by merely sliding a fingertip, holding neither pain nor resistance—sliding past without friction.

But Riku felt no dissatisfaction whatsoever regarding this.

An efficient, smart, and comfortable daily routine with no unnecessary emotional friction.

This was normal, and this was indeed what modern, smart living was all about—this is what life is, Riku even felt a certain level of satisfaction with it.

That was why the old, worn box sitting next to his grandfather's cutting-edge tablet looked so incredibly out of place.

Riku opened the small box as he was told and gripped the pitch-black lump inside.

"Whoa, what is this? It's so rough and heavy... My fingers turned black."

"That is coal—sekitan—my boy. It is the raw, physical heat that once held our lives together."

Eiichi lifted his hands from his keyboard, gently shaking his snow-white head as he cast his gaze back to a distant, snowy morning ninety years ago.

In the early morning of 1936, as the unprecedented heavy snow of the February 26 Incident blanketed Tokyo.

In a tiny, freezing house in Aomori, Eiichi let out his very first cry, born into the Year of the Mouse—nezumi-doshi.\nHe was born in the year of the creature said to be nimble, possessing the resourcefulness to survive the harshest of winters.

Ten years later, in the winter of 1946. The tenement house, having just seen the end of the war, was ruled by a bone-chilling deprivation and hunger.

His father, Eiji, who had been sent across the sea to the continent, had not yet returned on any repatriation train; they did not even know if he was alive.

"Eiichi, stand up straight.

You are a child of the Year of the Mouse; do not curl up and let the cold defeat you.

" His mother, Kiyo—then twenty-eight—rolled up the sleeves of her white apron—kappogi—and looked sternly at ten-year-old Eiichi.

She was a woman of rigid discipline—kiritsu—who never uttered a single complaint in front of her children and never tolerated a sluggish posture.

Yet, inside the iron stove of that tenement house was an incredibly unreliable fuel.

It was low-grade coal mixed with peat—deitan—where the ancient plants had failed to fully carbonize, leaving behind heavy moisture and un-decomposed plant fibers.

It was crumbly and soft, holding nothing but the damp texture of wet earth.

No matter how hard Kiyo tried to light it, the heat was constantly stolen away by the latent heat of evaporation from the heavy moisture trapped inside.

Only a flickering, weak red light, no larger than a fingernail, struggled to stay alive.

Far from warming the room, it filled the entire space with a stinging, damp white smoke that pierced their eyes.

"It's too smoky, Mama..."

As his younger sisters rubbed their eyes and coughed, Kiyo shut her eyes tight against the smoke and spoke with fierce resolve.

"Your father fought for us in places far colder than this, and even now, he is striving to return to us alive. How can a family born of the Mouse surrender to a bit of smoke?

" Kiyo never let them see her tears, instead striking her children's backs with a firm, encouraging slap.

Yet, the true warmth lying beneath that rigid discipline was something Eiichi would discover in the dead of night.

Woken up by the biting cold and the lingering, suffocating smoke, ten-year-old Eiichi saw a small shadow in the darkness next to the stove.

The strict, unyielding mother of the daytime was nowhere to be seen.

Kiyo was kneeling on the floor beside the freezing stove of dying peat, her small frame trembling violently.

Clutched in her hands was a pair of worn-out, frayed military gloves left behind by her husband, Eiji, before he went to the front lines.

Kiyo pressed those stiff, cold gloves against her rough, wind-chapped cheeks, weeping in a muffled, stifled voice.

"Eiji-san... please, stay alive... with the children, I cannot do this alone... Eiji-san..."

The trembling of her shoulders, and the sweet, vulnerable way she whispered "Eiji-san" like a young girl in the dark.

Eiichi watched her back, holding his breath, and finally understood.

The only reason his mother disciplined them so fiercely during the day was to fight off the heart-wrenching loneliness that threatened to tear her apart.

"Riku."

The ninety-year-old Eiichi turned off his tablet screen and gently looked at Riku's soot-stained fingertips.

"Technology, smartphones, and AI... in themselves, they are just like that damp, freezing peat coal.

Cold tools that might only steal away your warmth."

"But listen to me.

You must stoke them with real coal—the unyielding will to care for someone.

Only then does the cold machinery transform into a golden stove that warms the ones you love.

Tell me, Riku... between you and Yui right now, is there any of that real friction?"

Riku stared at the black soot remaining on his fingertips, feeling the rough friction against his skin.

He had always believed that merely sliding his fingers across smooth screens was enough, that living smartly by avoiding unnecessary friction was the correct path.

Yet, resting inside his cold palm, the lump of coal claimed its heavy, silent, and physical reality, quietly posing a question he had never thought to ask before.

The End of 'The Heat of Connection' - Episode 1

📖 Next Chapter:https://note.com/ttukumoo/n/nc16abf103ddd
🌐OriginalJapanesehere:https://note.com/juicy_laelia8513/n/naaf1dd350fe3

"Thank you so much for reading to the very end!"💗