The Last Drop‐Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Rusted Tin and the Truth of the Curse

To you, who are terrified of deciding your own path in life.

In 2026, a 90-year-old grandmother and her 18-year-old granddaughter confront each other in a quiet hospital room. Overcoming a gap of ninety years, this is a story of soul-stirring reconciliation—a passing of the torch of the "will to live."

The white, sterile hospital room was silent save for the rhythmic, artificial beeps of the heart monitor.

A faint hum from the air conditioner sent artificial drafts whispering across the sheets. Resting on the bed, Grandmother Haru looked astonishingly small, as if she had reverted to a child.

"I am only saying this for your own good."

The stern authority that had once dominated the household was nowhere to be found. Now, she simply lay there, white hair scattered across her pillow, sleeping quietly with deep wrinkles etched into her face.

（It was me who made Grandmother like this...)

Chihiro, her granddaughter, clutched her own knees tightly as she sat on the metal folding chair.

This spring, Chihiro, who was preparing to enter university, had rebelled against Haru for the very first time in her life. She told her grandmother that she wanted to go to a university in Tokyo and live by herself in an apartment of her own choosing. The moment she declared this, Haru flew into a rage, screaming, "Assumptions are fatal!"

Perhaps triggered by the emotional strain of that argument, Haru’s health rapidly deteriorated, and she was hospitalized shortly after.

Is choosing to decide for oneself really such a bad thing? Was it truly my selfishness that brought about this situation, just as Grandmother said? A heavy blanket of self-reproach suffocated Chihiro’s chest.

Unable to bear the restless stillness, Chihiro began organizing Haru's belongings tucked in a corner of the room. As she arranged the spare clothes and towels, she felt a heavy, odd lump at the very bottom of the bag.

When she pulled it out, she found a rusted, ancient iron tin. It was completely covered in reddish-brown rust, leaving a gritty, dry residue on her fingertips at the slightest touch.

As she tried to twist the lid, a harsh, grating sound of metal against metal echoed through the quiet room. Applying more force, the lid suddenly gave way with a satisfying click.

Lying at the bottom of the tin was a melted, hardened mass of dark brown candy. It must have been sweet once, but now, mixed with the metallic rust, it looked terribly muddy and bitter.

And beside it lay a small, tightly folded scrap of paper. It was a yellowed memo pad, so fragile that it felt as if it would tear at any touch. On it, in faint, fading pencil marks, was a date from the 21st year of the Showa era (1946) and a name Chihiro had never heard before.

"...Chihiro. Have you found that?"

Chihiro’s shoulders trembled at the raspy voice. On the bed, Haru had slightly opened her eyes. The sharp glint of her past was gone, replaced by a soft, steady gaze fixed on Chihiro’s hands.

"Grandmother, are you okay? Should I call the nurse..."

"No, I am fine. More importantly... I must tell you about that tin."

Haru exhaled a weak breath, her gaze wandering as if staring at a distant, far-off sky. Her eyes seemed to look right through the white hospital room of 2026, gazing instead at the blackened, charred ruins of eighty years ago.

"That is a memento of my younger sister."

"Your sister...?"

Chihiro held her breath. She had never once heard that her grandmother had a younger sister.

"In Showa 21 (1946), I was ten years old."

Haru's voice was as quiet as dry autumn leaves rustling together.

"It was the year after the war ended. No matter where you looked, there was nothing but blackened, charred ruins. We had no home, and there was nothing to eat. Day after day, we starved, and my sister did nothing but cry. It was during that time, by some absolute miracle, that we received a sweet piece of candy through rationing."

Haru closed her eyes once, her fingers moving faintly as if recalling the single drop of light that had rested on her palm that day.

"I was so happy, and I wanted to put it into her mouth right away. But you see, I 'made an assumption'."

"An assumption...?"

When Chihiro asked, a shadow of agonizing pain flickered in Haru’s eyes.

"Yes. At the time, the adults in the ruins all said the same thing: 'If you suddenly give such intense sweetness or rich food to someone who is starving to death, their weakened stomach and intestines won't be able to take it, and they will get severe diarrhea. If that happens, they will die in an instant.' They said if you ruin your stomach, you will never stand again. That was our 'common sense' back then."

Haru’s dry hand clenched tightly over the bedsheet.

"And so, out of a desperate desire to keep her alive, I blindly believed it. 'I must not let her eat it right now. Tomorrow, if we can get even a tiny bit of rice porridge, I will let her lick it drop by drop like medicine. To save her life, I must keep it hidden for now.' That is what I thought.

Even though I knew how desperately she wanted that candy right then, I dismissed her raw voice as a mere child’s tantrum. Armed with my 'correct judgment,' I forced her to endure and hid the candy away at the bottom of that rusted tin. ...But you see."

A single tear spilled from Haru's eye, tracing down her deep wrinkles.

"No porridge ever came the next day, nor the day after. And my little sister grew cold and still, without ever tasting the sweetness of that candy even once. Her name is written on that memo."

Chihiro stared at the rusted tin in her hands. The melted, hardened brown mass suddenly looked painfully sorrowful.

"My 'correct assumption,' born of goodwill, stole the final joy from the most precious person in the world to me, and killed her. For eighty years since that day, I have never been able to forgive myself. Making my own decisions, trying to judge things 'correctly'... it all became terrifying to me."

Haru reached out a dry, papery hand, trying to grasp Chihiro's. The strength in it was astonishingly weak.

"The reason I always got so angry at you whenever you tried to decide for yourself, Chihiro... was because I was deathly afraid that you would make a wrong choice and end up miserable. I felt I had to lay down the correct tracks for you, otherwise you might be lost because of me, just like my sister was. In my desperate wish to protect you, I was forcing my own views on you all over again..."

Chihiro was speechless. A bitter lump welled up in the back of her throat.

Grandmother’s strict habit of saying "Assumptions are fatal" was not born of malice to control her.

It was a lifelong penance and a frantic prayer for Chihiro, carried for eighty years by a young girl who, in the depths of postwar hell, had lost all faith in her own choices.

Chihiro stood frozen, clutching the rusted tin of hardened candy, unable to utter a single word.

The sheer depth of her grandmother's sorrow felt as if it would tear her heart apart.

📖 Next Chapter:https://note.com/ttukumoo/n/n16f2e2fe9e66　　
🌐 Original Japanesehere:https://note.com/juicy_laelia8513/n/n90d933e330ff　　

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