The Morning Glow Burns with Youth

Episode 1: Sliding Fingers and Searing Iron

On the veranda of his family's traditional Japanese house.

The humid summer breeze of 2026 lightly brushed through Ayumu’s hair.

Ayumu stared down at the flat glass screen of the smartphone in his hand.

There was no resistance, no friction on its surface.

With every slide of his finger, his social media timeline flowed down at a sterile speed.

The dazzling words of "#JobOffer" and AI-driven recommendations for public servant exam prep slid right past.

His future self, working and living somewhere after graduation.

No matter how hard he tried to visualize it, it blurred like a thick white fog, refusing to take shape.

"I just don't want to get hurt anymore. A reasonably stable, ordinary life is all I really want..."

Ayumu sighed softly and swiped the edge of the screen.

A message from his girlfriend, Misaki, popped up.

"Hope you did well with job hunting today! Let's both just take it easy and do our best~ (panda emoji)"

The words were endlessly gentle, yet endlessly light.

It was the careful distance of a "smart, uncomplicated couple," acting their parts so as not to shatter their fragile peace.

Ayumu replied with a simple "Gotcha!" and continued sliding his finger across the screen.

No matter how connected they were, a chilling loneliness lingered, as if his mind were drifting away from reality.

"How is the job hunting going, Ayumu?"

Stepping over the threshold to the veranda, his grandfather, Seiichi, arrived holding an old tray with two cups of tea.

Ayumu flipped his phone face down and scratched his head awkwardly.

"Ah, well, taking it slow. Honestly, when they ask about my '10-year vision' in interviews, I seriously don't get it."

"Hmm, ten years from now, is it?"

"Yeah. It's not like I want to be incredibly rich. Just two days off a week, no overtime, and a decent salary is plenty."

"But I just can't picture myself standing at the end of that safe, stable track. It's like... there are moments when I just want to reset everything and disappear..."

Seiichi quietly absorbed Ayumu's words, set the tray on the tatami, and pointed to the corner of the room.

There sat a dusty, handmade vacuum tube radio encased in a worn wooden cabinet.

"Ayumu, go touch that dial and try turning it."

"Eh? This? Whoa, this dial is heavy. It takes actual effort to turn. Totally different from a touch screen."

"Indeed. The glass screen you touch every day is smooth, with absolutely no resistance."

"But, Ayumu. Without a firm 'response' to grasp onto, a human can neither stand their ground nor confirm where they belong."

Seiichi sat down beside Ayumu and gazed at his own gnarled palms.

"It was exactly the same as when I was twenty-two, back in 1952, Ayumu."

"Was your future like a thick white fog too, Grandpa?"

"Yes. Back then, it was the war procurement boom. The munitions factory where I worked forged iron for war, running nonstop day and night."

"Our pay envelopes grew thicker, and the adults around us rejoiced, but my heart was frozen cold."

"Why? If the pay was good, wasn't that the best?"

"The guilty conscience—knowing we were eating our meals thanks to a war where people were being hurt overseas—ached like a thorn stuck in my throat."

"In an absurd world where neither the state nor society protected young workers, I felt utterly powerless."

"Working until midnight every day like a dog, I would return to our tiny six-tatami apartment, unable to find words to say to your grandmother, Yumi. We would just look down in silence over cold miso soup."

The harsh imagery of the old factory rushed back to Seiichi's mind, along with the distinct smell of searing iron.

In a corner of a munitions factory swirling with deafening noise and intense heat, a young Seiichi gripped a heavy hammer.

The red-hot iron plate pulled from the furnace glowed like a fiery fang in the darkness.

With every strike of the hammer, violent sparks flew, and the intense impact vibrated deep into the bones of Seiichi’s arms.

It was a violent, brutal "response"—one that made him want to cover his ears.

Sweat pouring from his forehead stung his eyes, and he wiped it away roughly with an oil-stained sleeve.

"Lose even a single finger in an accident, and we starve tomorrow."

This was bare-bones survival in an era completely devoid of social safety nets.

2:00 AM.

When Seiichi opened the thin wooden door of the apartment, Yumi, his wife, was operating a treadle sewing machine for side-income in a dark corner of the tatami room.

The rhythmic, metallic clatter of the machine echoed through the cold air.

Even as Seiichi returned covered in soot and grease, Yumi hid her chapped hands under her apron, forcing a smile to offer him reheated miso soup.

"Welcome home, Seiichi."

"Yeah... Yumi, that's enough side-work. Go to sleep."

"No, I can't. The price of rice rose again this month, so I have to finish at least this much."

Seiichi stopped his chopsticks, staring down into the lukewarm bowl.

The unspoken guilt of feeding themselves on the flames of a distant war, coupled with the dire fear of survival.

Between them, only a cold silence flowed, like a freezing winter draft.

Because they cared for each other, they chose not to burden one another, stepping back from their true feelings.

It was identical to the invisible distance between Ayumu and Misaki today, acting out an unbreakable relationship through their smartphone screens.

The steam from the cooling tea quietly dissolved into the veranda air.

Ayumu stared intently at his own fingertips resting on the radio's brass dial.

"So your generation had that same freezing silence too, Grandpa."

"We did. Faced with future survival anxiety and the absurdities of a massive world, we young people could only tremble."

"But, Ayumu. I stopped trying to carry the weight of the entire world on my own. One night, I decided to look only at the smallest reality within the reach of my own fingertips. And that was your grandmother Yumi's hand."

"By the way, Ayumu, are you actually enjoying your dates with Misaki?"

"Huh? Where did that come from? ...I mean, yeah, normally. We go to movies, grab coffee, stuff like that."

"I see. Tell me, do you two actually hold hands?"

"What? Of course we do. What kind of question is that, Grandpa? It's kind of creepy."

Seiichi laughed heartily, then gently reached out to clasp Ayumu's hand resting beside the tray.

"Hahaha, creepy, is it? But tell me, aren't you just holding hands the same way you stroke the glass of your phone—lightly, without any friction?"

"Are you truly trying to feel the real 'response'—her actual body temperature right now, and how she squeezes back?"

"Well, that's..."

"For once, put your phone in your pocket, and grasp Misaki's fragile warmth right in front of you as a true reality."

"The 'response' of your own life begins nowhere else but from such messy, real moments."

Ayumu took a slow, deep breath and gently put his smartphone screen to sleep.

On the now pitch-black, smooth glass, nothing was reflected anymore.

📖 Next Chapter:https://note.com/ttukumoo/n/nf135d46991d0
🌐OriginalJapanesehere:https://note.com/juicy_laelia8513/n/nd5c0eb73c627

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