Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

How kindly you look at me after I’ve been so horrible for so long. You held on to these kind feelings while you continued to wait for me for so long. Always wishing we could work together at the inn. Never giving up. But I…

After a long silence of being lost in her feelings Hirai managed to mutter just two words. ‘Thank you.’

She didn’t know whether that one phrase could contain all these feelings or whether it conveyed how she felt. But every part of her at that moment was invested in those two words.

Kumi looked perplexed for a moment, but then replied with a big grin. ‘Yeah, you’re definitely acting strange today.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ Hirai said, squeezing out her last strength to produce her biggest and best smile. Visibly happy, Kumi shrugged and then twirled round and headed for the toilet.

Hirai watched her walk away. Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt she could no longer stem the flow. Yet she did not blink. She fixed her gaze on Kumi’s back, watching her until she disappeared. As soon as Kumi was out of sight, she dropped her head and her tears fell from her face and landed like rain on the table. She felt the grief surge from the bottom of her heart. She wanted to scream and bawl, but she couldn’t cry out.

If she did, Kumi would hear it. She desperately covered her mouth to stop herself from yelling her sister’s name and with shoulders trembling she muted her voice and cried. From the kitchen, Kei called out to her, concerned by her strange behaviour.

‘You OK, Hirai?’

Beep beep beep beep beep…

The sudden sound came from the coffee cup: the alarm warning that the coffee was about to get cold.

‘Oh no! That alarm!’

Kei understood everything when she heard it – the alarm was only used when a person was visiting someone who had died.

Oh dear… Her sweet little sister…

With Kumi in the toilet, Kei looked over at Hirai. ‘Surely no…’ she muttered in dread.

Hirai saw how Kei was looking at her, and simply nodded sadly.

Kei looked distressed. ‘Hirai,’ she called.

‘I know,’ she said, grabbing the coffee cup. ‘I’ve got to drink up, right?’

Kei didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything.

Hirai held the cup. She breathed in and exhaled with a moan, filled with all the painful grief seeping from her heart.

‘I just want to see her face, one more time. But if I do, I won’t be able to return.’

Hirai’s shaking hands brought the cup to her lips. She had to drink up. Tears surged once again from her eyes. A rush of thoughts crossed her mind. Why did this happen? Why did she have to die? Why didn’t I say that I would go home earlier?

The cup stopped a short distance from her lips and didn’t move. After a moment, ‘Ugh. I can’t drink it…’

She put the cup down, totally drained of strength. She had no idea what she wanted to do or why she had gone back to the past. All she knew was that she loved her little sister, she was precious to her, and now she was gone.

If I drink this coffee now, I will never see my sister again. Even though I finally made her smile, it will never happen again. Yet she knew she would never be able to drink the coffee with Kumi’s face in front of her.

‘Hirai!’

‘I can’t drink it!’

Kei could see how distressed Hirai was. She bit her lip and looked grave.

‘You just promised…’ she said with a trembling voice. ‘You just promised your sister, didn’t you? That you would return to the inn.’

Kumi’s happy elated smile was branded onto the back of her closed eyelids.

‘You said that you would run it alongside her.’

Hirai imagined that Kumi was alive. They were working happily together at the inn.

The sound of that early morning phone call rang in her head. ‘But she…’

The image of Kumi lying there as if she was sleeping flashed before her. Kumi was gone.

What was she to do once she returned to the present? Her heart seemed to have lost all desire to return. Kei was crying too, but Hirai had never heard such determination in her voice. ‘That means you have to return. That makes it more important than ever.’

How so?

‘How unhappy would your sister be if she knew that your promise was only made for today? She would be devastated, don’t you think?’

Yes! Kei’s right. Kumi told me it was her dream to work with me, and I promised her. That was the first time I had ever seen Kumi so happy. I can’t act as if that smiling face never happened. I can’t let her down again. I have to return to the present and to Takakura. Even if Kumi is dead, I promised her when she was alive. I have to make sure her happiness was for something.

Hirai grabbed the cup. But…

I want to see Kumi’s face one more time. That was her last dilemma.

But waiting to see Kumi’s face would mean not being able to return to the present. This was something that Hirai was all too aware of. Yet even though she knew that she had to just drink up the coffee, the distance between the cup and her mouth remained the same.

Clack.

She faintly heard the sound of the toilet door opening. At the moment she heard that sound, her instincts took over and she downed the coffee – she couldn’t afford to hesitate.

All rational thinking had been put aside. She felt her entire body reacting intuitively. The moment she drank the coffee the dizziness returned and she felt like she was blending into the steam that now surrounded her entire body. She resigned herself to never seeing Kumi ever again. But just then she returned from the toilet.

Kumi!

Amidst the shimmering, part of Hirai’s consciousness was still in the past.

‘Huh? Big Sis?’ Kumi had returned, but she seemed unable to see Hirai. She was looking at that seat, the one Hirai had been sitting in, with a puzzled look on her face.

Kumi!

Hirai’s voice did not reach her.

The now-fading Kumi looked at Kei, who was standing with her back turned behind the counter.

‘Excuse me, I don’t suppose you know where my sister went, do you?’ she asked.

Kei turned round and smiled at her. ‘She had to go suddenly…’

On hearing this Kumi looked bereft. It must have been a disappointment. She finally met her sister and then she suddenly left. She had said she would return home, but the reunion was short and sweet. It was only natural that she felt anxious. She sighed and slumped in her chair. Kei saw how she reacted to this news.

‘Don’t worry! Your sister said she would keep her promise,’ she said, winking in the direction of where Hirai, reduced to steam, was watching.

Kei, you’re a saviour! Thank you.

Hirai began crying, touched by Kei’s support.

Kumi stood and was silent for a moment. ‘Really?’ she asked, as a broad smile spread over her face. ‘OK, great! Well I’ll be on my way home then.’ She bowed politely then rose and walked out of the cafe with a spring in her step.

‘ Kumi-i! ’

Hirai saw everything through shimmering steam. Kumi had smiled when she heard that Hirai would keep her promise.

Everything around Hirai wound from start to finish like a film on fast-forward. She continued to cry. She cried and cried and cried…

The woman in the dress had returned from the toilet and was standing next to her. Kazu, Nagare, Kohtake, and Kei were there too. Hirai had returned to the present – the present without Kumi.

The woman in the dress paid no attention to Hirai’s teary eyes. ‘Move!’ she said disgruntledly.

‘Ah. Right,’ Hirai said, jumping up from that seat.

The woman in the dress sat back down in her seat. She pushed away the coffee cup that Hirai had drunk from and began reading her novel as if nothing had happened.