Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

‘Hirai, stop it!’ Kei yelled.

But at that moment, the woman in the dress’s eyes opened wide, and she glared at Hirai. Instantly, she was overwhelmed by the sensation that she was becoming heavier, many times over. It felt as if the earth’s gravity had begun multiplying. The cafe’s lighting suddenly seemed reduced to candlelight, flickering in the wind, and an eerie ghostly wailing began reverberating throughout the cafe, with no sign of where it was coming from. Unable to move a muscle, she fell to her knees.

‘What the… what is this?’

‘Well, you could have listened!’ Kei sighed dramatically, with an air of I-told-you-so.

Hirai was familiar with the rules, but she didn’t know anything about the curse. What she knew had been put together from explanations given to customers who had come wanting to go back to the past, and they had normally given up on the idea after hearing the overly complicated rules.

‘She’s a demon… a hag!’ she shouted.

‘No, she’s just a ghost,’ Kei interjected coolly. From the floor, Hirai was hurling insults at the woman in the dress, but such abuse was useless.

‘Oh…!’ Kazu exclaimed when she appeared from the back room. One look told her what had happened. She darted back into the kitchen and came out carrying a carafe filled with coffee. She walked up to the woman in the dress.

‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ Kazu asked.

‘Yes, please,’ the woman in the dress replied, and Hirai was released. Strangely, Kazu was the only one who could lift the curse; when Kei or Nagare had tried to it hadn’t worked. Now free, Hirai returned to normal. She started panting heavily. Looking very worn out by the ordeal, she turned to Kazu.

‘Kazu love, please say something to her. Get her to move!’ she cried.

‘OK, I understand what you’re going through, Hirai.’

‘So can you do something?’

Kazu looked down at the carafe she was holding in her hands. She thought for a few moments.

‘I can’t say whether this will work or not…’

Hirai was desperate enough to try anything.

‘Whatever! Please do this for me!’ she pleaded, holding her hands in prayer.

‘OK, let’s try it.’ Kazu walked up to the woman in the dress. With Kei’s help, Hirai returned to standing and watched to see what was about to happen.

‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ Kazu asked again despite the cup being still full to the brim.

Hirai and Kohtake both tilted their heads sideways, unable to work out what Kazu was doing.

But the woman in the dress responded to the offer of a refill.

‘Yes, please,’ she replied, and drank the entire cup of coffee that had been poured for her just moments before. Kazu then filled the emptied cup with coffee. The woman in the dress then proceeded to read her novel, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Then, straight afterwards…

‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ Kazu asked again.

The woman in the dress still had not touched the coffee since the last refill: the cup remained completely full.

And yet the woman in the dress again replied, ‘Yes, please,’ and proceeded to down the entire coffee.

‘Well, who would have thought…’ Kohtake said, her expression slowly changing as she realized what Kazu was doing.

Kazu continued with her outlandish plan. After filling the cup with coffee she would offer again: ‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ She went on doing this, and every time it was offered, the woman in the dress would reply, ‘Yes, please,’ and drink it down. But after a while, the woman began to look uncomfortable.

Rather than drinking the coffee down in one go, she began to take several sips to finish it. Using this method, Kazu managed to get the woman in the dress to drink seven cups of coffee.

‘She looks so uncomfortable. Why doesn’t she just refuse?’ Kohtake commented, sympathizing with the woman in the dress.

‘She can’t refuse,’ Kei whispered in Kohtake’s ear.

‘Why not?’

‘Because apparently that’s the rule.’

‘Goodness…’ Kohtake said in surprise to the fact that it wasn’t only those travelling back in time who had to follow annoying rules. She watched on, eager to see what would happen next. Kazu poured an eighth coffee, filling the cup almost to the point of overflowing. The woman in the dress winced. But Kazu was relentless.

‘Would you care for some more coffee?’

When Kazu offered the ninth cup of coffee, the woman in the dress suddenly stood up from her seat.

‘She stood up!’ Kohtake exclaimed in excitement.

‘Toilet,’ the woman in the dress mumbled, glaring directly at Kazu, and headed off to the toilet.

It had taken some coercion, but that seat had been vacated.

‘Thank you,’ Hirai said as she staggered over to the seat where the woman in the dress had been sitting. Hirai’s nervousness seemed to affect everyone in the cafe. She drew in a large, deep breath, slowly exhaled, and slid in between the table and the chair. She sat down and gently closed her eyes.

Kumi Hirai had always been, since she was a young girl, a little sister who followed her big sister around, calling out ‘Big Sis’ this and ‘Big Sis’ that.

The old inn was always very busy, no matter the season. Her father was the proprietor and her mother the proprietress. Her mother Michiko went back to work soon after she was born. Often the task of watching over her, still a young baby, fell to six-year-old Hirai. When she started elementary school, Hirai would give her a piggyback to school. It was a country school, and the teachers were understanding. If she started crying in class, Hirai was able to take her out of class to comfort her. In school Hirai was a reliable big sister, diligent in looking after her little sister.

Hirai’s parents had great hopes for Hirai, who was naturally sociable and likeable. They thought she would become an excellent manager of the inn. But her parents had underestimated the intricacies of her character. Specifically, she was free-spirited. She wanted to do things without having to worry what others thought. It was what made her comfortable enough to give Kumi a piggyback to school. She had no inhibitions. She wanted to do things her own way. Her behaviour meant that her parents didn’t worry about her, but it was precisely this free-spiritedness that ultimately led to her refusal of her parents’ wish that she would someday take over the inn.

She didn’t hate her parents, nor did she hate the inn. She simply lived for her freedom. At eighteen, she left home, when Kumi was twelve. Her parents’ anger at her leaving home was just as intense as the expectation they had held that she would be their successor, and they cut her off. While the shock of her leaving weighed heavy on her parents, Kumi also took it badly.

But Kumi must have sensed that she was going to leave. When she left, Kumi did not cry or appear heartbroken; she just muttered, ‘She’s so selfish,’ when she saw the letter that Hirai had left for her.

Kazu was standing beside Hirai and carrying a white coffee cup and silver kettle on a silver tray. Her face had an elegant, calm expression.

‘You know the rules?’

‘I know the rules…’

Kumi had visited the cafe, and while it wouldn’t be possible to change the fact that she died in the accident, Hirai was now sitting in the right seat, and however short the time she would have in the past, if she could see Kumi one last time, it would be worth it.

Hirai gave a deep nod and prepared herself.

But regardless of her preparedness, Kazu continued to speak.

‘People who go back to the past to meet a person now deceased can get caught up in the emotion, so even though they know there is a time limit, they become unable to say goodbye. So I want you to have this…’ Kazu placed a small stick about ten centimetres long into Hirai’s cup of coffee – the kind you might use to stir a cocktail. It looked a bit like a spoon.