Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Tales from the Café

‘Twenty-two years? I bet there were some tough times along the way?’

‘Not really, it’s flashed by pretty fast…’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah…’

Shuichi, his eyes still red, beamed a broad smile.

‘Thanks to you,’ Gohtaro said softly to this smiling face.

‘I see, ha .’ Shuichi laughed with embarrassment and pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket and blew his nose. But the pit-a-pat of tears falling on the table continued.

‘So, what is it?’

Shuichi stared questioningly at Gohtaro as if to ask, Why did you come? He didn’t mean it to sound like he was interrogating him. But he knew this cafe’s rules, particularly the limit on their time for reunion. He also couldn’t imagine Gohtaro coming to see him without reason. So rather than wallowing in sentimentality, Shuichi felt he had no choice but to get straight to the point.

Gohtaro, however, wasn’t immediately forthcoming with an answer.

‘Are you OK?’ Shuichi asked in the same tone one might use to address a crying child.

‘To be honest…’

As he slowly reached out to check the coffee’s temperature, he tentatively began to explain.

‘Haruka has decided to get married.’

‘…uh?’

It must have been a shock even for ever-sharp Shuichi to hear this from Gohtaro. The smile instantly vanished from his face. Perfectly understandable. For Shuichi back in this time, Haruka was just a newborn.

‘What… what? What does that mean?’

‘Er, don’t worry, everything’s OK,’ said Gohtaro in a relaxed tone. He had imagined Shuichi might get agitated during the conversation.

He brought the coffee to his lips and took a sip. He wasn’t sure what temperature counted as cold, but it was still clearly warmer than skin temperature.

It should still be fine.

He returned the cup to the saucer. He told the story he had prepared beforehand. He did his best to avoid anything that might cause Shuichi to get upset. Most importantly, he had to make sure he didn’t say anything that would lead ever-astute Shuichi to suspect that he had died.

‘Actually, the future-you asked me to go back in time to get you to give a speech at Haruka’s wedding.’

‘I wanted to get me?’

‘Yeah, like a surprise.’

‘Surprise?…’

‘Future Shuichi and past Shuichi can’t meet, you see…’

‘And so, you came?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ continued Gohtaro, growing increasingly impressed with Shuichi’s perceptiveness.

‘OK, I think I get the idea…’

‘So, what do you say? It’s pretty out there, don’t you think?’

‘For sure, it’s very strange.’

‘Yeah, isn’t it just.’ Gohtaro pulled out a newly bought ultra-slim digital video camera, nothing like what had existed twenty-two years earlier.

‘And that is?’

‘It’s a camera.’

‘That tiny thing?’

‘Yeah. It records video too.’

‘Video too?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Awesome.’

Shuichi was looking hard into Gohtaro’s face as he searched for the on button of the camera he was still not used to.

‘It looks like you just bought it.’

‘Huh? Er, yeah, that’s right.’ Gohtaro answered Shuichi’s question without much thought.

‘You’ve still got to work on your end game, you know,’ Shuichi muttered with a serious face.

‘Yeah, sorry, I should have worked out how to use the darn thing before coming,’ Gohtaro replied, his ears blushing.

‘I’m not talking about the camera,’ said Shuichi, maintaining his stern tone.

‘Huh?’

‘Oh, never mind.’

Shuichi reached out and put his hand on the cup. Familiar with this cafe’s rules, he must have been worried about how much time was left.

‘Right, let’s do it!’ he exclaimed. He stood up with a burst of enthusiasm and spun around so that his back was to Gohtaro.

‘We’ve just got a single shot at this, right?’ he asked.

Based on the temperature of the coffee, Gohtaro didn’t think there would be time to reshoot either.

‘Yes. This will be great,’ he replied. ‘OK then, I’m taking it.’ He pressed the record button.

‘You know… you’ve always been a terrible liar,’ Shuichi muttered.

His words must not have reached Gohtaro, as he didn’t seem to react. He simply continued to point the camera at Shuichi.

‘To Haruka, twenty-two years from now. Congratulations on getting married.’ Then he grabbed the camera and quickly stepped away from Gohtaro’s reach.

‘Hey!’ Gohtaro yelped and stretched out his hand to get it back.

‘Don’t move!’ Shuichi said.

Gohtaro didn’t. Hearing Shuichi’s strong tone sent a chill down his spine. If that warning had come a split second later, he would have leaped up from his seat. Luckily he remembered just in time. If he had stood up, he would have been returned to the present immediately.

‘What did you do that for?’ he asked.

His voice echoed loudly in the room, but luckily they were the only two customers. Aside from them, it was just Nagare behind the counter, and he didn’t seem to care about the to-and-fro between them. He stood motionless with his arms crossed, showing not a hint of surprise.

Shuichi let out a deep breath, turned the camera to himself and started talking.

‘Haruka. Congrats on getting married.’

Gohtaro still was unclear on Shuichi’s motives for taking the camera, but when he saw that he was going ahead and recording a message, he was relieved.

‘On the day you were born, the sakura were in full bloom… I still remember when I first held you in my arms, how bright red you were, such a tiny thing all curled up.’

Thanking his lucky stars that Shuichi was cooperating, Gohtaro reached out and took the coffee cup, intending to return to the present immediately after Shuichi’s message was finished.

‘It brought me so much happiness just looking at your smiling face. Watching you as you slept gave me all the motivation I needed. Being blessed by your birth is the greatest joy in my life. You are more precious to me than anyone in the world. If it is for you, I can do anything…’

Everything was going to plan. He just needed to get the camera back and return to the present.

‘I wish you have a happy life for as long…’ Shuichi’s voice suddenly started to crack with emotion. ‘For as long as you live.’

Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.

‘Shuichi?’

‘Can we cut the charade?’

‘What?’

‘Stop lying to me, Gohtaro!’

‘Lying? What do you mean?’

Shuichi looked up at the ceiling and sighed heavily. His eyes were as red as they could get.

‘Shuichi?’

Shuichi was biting the back of his hand. He seemed to be trying to stifle his emotions with pain.

‘Shuichi!’

‘I…’

Pit-a-pat.

‘Won’t be attending…’

Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.

With gnashing of teeth, his words came out bit by bit.

‘Haruka’s wedding, will I?’

‘What do you mean? I said that it was your idea, didn’t I?’ Gohtaro urgently spun words together.

‘You didn’t seriously expect me to be fooled by such lies, did you?’ Shuichi retorted.

‘They’re not lies!’

Upon hearing this, he turned and looked at Gohtaro with his bright red eyes.

‘If you’re telling the truth, why have you been continually crying all this time?’

‘Huh?’

Pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.

What? I think I’d notice if I was crying , thought Gohtaro, but it was as Shuichi had said. Huge teardrops were falling from his eyes, and their splashes were making a pit-a-pat sound that reverberated around the cafe.