The Last Drop‐Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Last Drop - The Rusted Tin and the Truth of the Curse

Prologue: My Grandmother’s Curse

To anyone who is terrified of choosing their own path in life.

This is a story of reconciliation between a grandmother and her granddaughter confronting each other in a quiet hospital room in 2026, reconnecting their "will to live" across ninety years of time.

The white, sterile hospital room echoed only with the steady, rhythmic beep of the monitor.

The faint hum of the air conditioner, circulating artificial wind, slightly rustled the sheets. Lying on the bed, my grandmother, Haru, looked incredibly small—as if she had shrunk back into a child.

"I’m saying this for your own good."

The stern authority that had once dominated our household was completely gone. She lay quietly, her white hair scattered across the pillow, her face carved with deep, heavy wrinkles.

(I was the one who made my grandmother like this...)

Chihiro, her granddaughter, sat on the folding pipe chair, tightly gripping her own knees.

Set to enter university this spring, Chihiro had rebelled against Haru for the first time in her life.

She wanted to move to Tokyo, find her own apartment, and live on her own—the moment she told her this, Haru erupted with fury, screaming:

"Your assumptions will be the death of you!"

Perhaps triggered by the emotional stress, Haru's health deteriorated rapidly, and she was hospitalized immediately.

Is choosing my own path really such a bad thing? Was my selfishness truly the cause of all this? A heavy sense of guilt weighed down on Chihiro's chest.

A Small Rusted Tin at the Bottom of the Bag

Unable to bear the idle silence, Chihiro began organizing Haru's belongings in the corner of the room.

As she arranged the spare clothes and towels, she felt a heavy, strange weight at the bottom of the bag.

Pulling it out, she discovered a small, ancient iron tin.

It was completely covered in reddish-brown rust, leaving a dry, powdery residue on her fingertips.

When she tried to twist the lid, a harsh metallic screech echoed through the quiet room. Applying more force, the lid suddenly popped open with a satisfying click.

Sitting at the bottom of the tin was a clump of dark brown, melted candy. It must have been sweet once, but now it was mixed with metallic rust, smelling heavily of damp earth.

And right next to it was a small, tightly folded scrap of paper.

It was a yellowed, fragile memo sheet that felt as if it would tear at the slightest touch.

On it, written in faint, almost invisible pencil marks, was a date from 1946 (Showa 21) and a name Chihiro had never heard of.

"...Chihiro. Did you find that?"

The raspy voice made Chihiro's shoulders flinch.

On the bed, Haru had opened her eyes slightly.

Her gaze had lost its usual sharp edge, staring quietly at Chihiro's hands.

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

"It's fine. More importantly... I must tell you about that tin."

Haru exhaled a weak sigh, her eyes wandering as if looking at a distant, far-off sky.

Her eyes seemed to pass through the white hospital walls of 2026, staring back at the charred ruins of eighty years ago.

The "Right Assumption" Made by Ten-Year-Old Haru in 1946

"That is... a keepsake of my little sister."

"Your sister...?"

Chihiro gasped. She had never once heard that her grandmother had a sister.

"In 1946, I was ten years old,"

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

"It was the year after the war ended. Wherever you looked, there was nothing but blackened, burnt ruins.
No homes, and absolutely nothing to eat.
Every single day, we were starving, and my little sister would cry constantly. Then, like an absolute miracle, we managed to get a sweet piece of candy from the rations."

Haru closed her eyes, her fingers twitching slightly as if remembering the single droplet of light that sat on her palm that day.

"I was so happy. I wanted to put it right into her mouth. But... I fell into a fatal 'assumption'."

"An assumption...?"

As Chihiro asked, a pained look of silent anguish passed through Haru's eyes.

"Yes. Back then, the adults in the ruins all said the same thing: 'If you suddenly give such strong sweetness or food to someone on the verge of starvation, their weakened stomach won't 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 can never stand up again. That was our 'common sense' back then."

Haru's dry hand clenched tightly on the white bedsheet.

"So, desperate to keep her alive, I stubbornly believed it. I thought, 'I mustn't let her eat it right now.
Tomorrow, if we can get even a tiny bit of porridge, I’ll let her lick it drop by drop, like medicine. To save her life, I have to hide it now.'"

"I knew how desperately she wanted that candy right then.
But I dismissed her raw, pleading voice as nothing but a child's tantrum. Armed with my 'correct judgment', I forced her to wait and kept the candy hidden at the bottom of that rusted tin. ...But..."

A single tear escaped Haru's eye, tracing down the deep wrinkles of her cheek.

"No porridge ever came the next day. And she... passed away, turning cold without ever knowing the sweetness of that candy.
Her name is written on that memo."

Chihiro stared at the rusted tin in her hand. The melted, dark brown clump suddenly looked painfully tragic.

"My 'seemingly correct assumption', meant for her own good, stole the final joy from the person who meant the most to me in this world, and killed her. For eighty years, I could never forgive myself.
I became terrified of deciding anything, of trying to make a correct judgment."

The True Nature of the Curse Was an Agonizing Prayer

Haru reached out with her dry, withered hand, trying to grasp Chihiro's. Her grip was incredibly weak.

"The reason I always scolded you and shot down your decisions, Chihiro... was because I was deathly afraid that you would make a wrong choice and end up unhappy.

I felt I had to lay down the correct tracks for you, or else you would be lost because of me, just like my sister back then.

I spent every day in terror. In my desperation to protect you, I was forcing my own views on you all over again..."

Chihiro was speechless. A bitter lump rose in her throat.

Her grandmother's strict, recurring curse—"Your assumptions will be the death of you"—was never born of malice to bind her.

Deep within the hell of the post-war ruins, a young girl who had lost all faith in her own decisions had carried eighty years of silent repentance for her sister, and an agonizing, desperate prayer for Chihiro's safety.

Still clutching the rusted tin of melted candy, Chihiro stood in absolute silence, unable to say a word.

Her chest ached with the sheer depth of her grandmother's sorrow.

(To be continued in Chapter 2)

📖 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!"💗