Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

‘Really?’ Fumiko asked. Then in her excitement she accidentally bumped the table, spilling the woman in the dress’s coffee. The woman twitched her eyebrows and in a great panic, Fumiko wiped the spilled coffee with a napkin – she didn’t want to get cursed.

‘Wow!’ Kohtake exclaimed.

Kazu took in both women’s responses. ‘But no one goes,’ she added coolly.

‘What?’ Fumiko asked, taken aback. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t they?’ she demanded, drawing closer to Kazu. Surely she wasn’t the only person to whom the idea of travelling to the future appealed – that’s what she meant to say. Kohtake also looked as if she wanted to know why no one went. Her eyes widened and she looked intently at Kazu. Kazu looked to Nagare and then back at Fumiko.

‘Well, OK… If you want to go to the future, how many years forward do you want to go?’

Despite the question apparently having come from nowhere, it seemed that Fumiko had already considered this.

‘Three years from now!’ Fumiko answered immediately, as if she had been waiting to be asked. Her face turned a little red.

‘You want to meet your boyfriend?’ Kazu enquired, apparently unmoved.

‘Well… So what if I do?’ She stuck out her jaw as if to defend herself, but her face grew redder.

At that point Nagare interrupted. ‘No need to be embarrassed about it…’

‘I’m nothing of the sort!’ she retorted. But Nagare had touched a nerve, and both he and Kohtake were looking at each other, grinning.

Kazu was not in a teasing mood. She was looking at Fumiko with her usual cool expression. Fumiko picked up the seriousness.

‘That’s not possible?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘No, it’s possible… It’s not that it’s not possible,’ Kazu continued, in a flat monotone.

‘But?’

‘How can you know that in three years he will visit the cafe?’

Fumiko didn’t appear to understand the point of the question.

‘Don’t you see?’ Kazu asked Fumiko, as if cross-examining her.

‘Oh,’ Fumiko said, finally getting it. Even if she travelled forward in time by three years, how could she possibly be sure that Goro would be in the cafe?

‘That’s the sticking point. What’s happened in the past has happened. You can target that moment and go back there. But…’

‘The future is completely unknown!’ Kohtake said, clapping her hands, as if playing on a quiz show.

‘Sure, you can travel to the day you wish to go to, but there is no way of knowing if the person you want to meet is going to be there.’

Judging by Kazu’s nonplussed expression, there must have been lots of other people who had pondered the same thing.

‘So, unless you are counting on a miracle, if you decide on a time in the future and travel to it – for just that short time before the coffee cools – the chances of meeting the person you actually want to meet are very slim,’ Nagare added, as if he explained this sort of thing all the time. He finished by looking at Fumiko with his narrow eyes asking, You get what I’m saying?

‘So going would just be a waste of time?’ Fumiko muttered with acceptance.

‘Exactly.’

‘I see…’

Considering how seemingly superficial her motive was, Fumiko probably should have been more embarrassed. But she was so impressed with the air-tight nature of the cafe’s rules that it did not cross her mind to question Kazu’s response further.

She didn’t say anything but she thought to herself, When you return to the past, you cannot change the present. Going to the future is simply a waste of time. How convenient. I can see why that magazine article described the cafe’s time travel as ‘meaningless’.

But she wasn’t going to avoid embarrassment so easily. Nagare further narrowed his eyes, inquisitively.

‘What did you want to do? Make sure you were married?’ he teased.

‘Nothing of the sort!’

‘Ha! Knew it.’

‘No! I told you it’s not that!… Ugh!’

The more she denied it, the deeper the hole Fumiko seemed to be digging herself into.

But unfortunately for her, she wouldn’t have been able to travel to the future anyway. There was one more annoying rule preventing this from occurring: A person who has sat on the chair to travel through time once cannot do it a second time. Each person receives only a single chance.

But I think it would be easier not to tell Fumiko that, Kazu thought, as she observed Fumiko chatting happily. This was not out of consideration for Fumiko, but rather because she would demand a reasonable explanation for such a rule.

I can’t be bothered dealing with that , Kazu thought simply.

‘Hello! Welcome!’

It was Fusagi. He was wearing a navy polo shirt, beige-brown trousers, and setta sandals. A bag hung from his shoulder. It was the hottest day of the year. In his hand, he held not a handkerchief but a small white towel, which he was using to wipe his sweat.

‘Fusagi!’ Nagare called his name rather than chanting the customer greeting of Hello! Welcome!

Fusagi first looked a bit confused, but then gave a small nod in reply and went to sit down at his usual seat, at the table closest to the entrance. Kohtake, with her hands behind her back, strolled up close to him.

‘Hello, darling!’ she said with a smile. She no longer called him Fusagi like she had used to.

‘I’m sorry, do I know you?’

‘I’m your wife, my love.’

‘Wife?… My wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is a joke… Right?’

‘No. I really am your wife!’

Without hesitation, she slipped into the seat facing him. Not sure how to react to this unknown woman behaving in such a familiar manner, he looked troubled.

‘Er, I would prefer it if you didn’t take the liberty of sitting there.’

‘Oh, it’s perfectly fine that I sit here… I’m your wife.’

‘Um, it’s not fine with me. I don’t know you.’

‘Well then, you’ll have to get to know me. Let’s start now.’

‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Well, I guess it’s a marriage proposal?’

While he was gaping at this woman in front of him, she sat there smiling. Visibly distressed, he sought the help of Kazu, who had come to serve him a glass of water.

‘Um. Please could you do something about this woman?’

If you were a stranger taking a quick glance, you might see a couple in a good mood. But if you looked harder at Fusagi, you would see the face of a man in distress.

‘He looks a bit upset,’ Kazu said, offering him her support with a smile.

‘Is he?… Oh well.’

‘Maybe it’s best to leave it at that for today?’ Nagare said from behind the counter, offering a lifeboat.

Similar conversations had played out between the couple on several occasions. Some days, when Kohtake told Fusagi that she was his wife, he would refuse to believe it. But oddly on other days it was different. There would be times when he would say, ‘ Oh? Really? ’ and accept it. Just two days earlier, she had sat opposite him and they had had what seemed to be an enjoyable conversation.

During such conversations they mainly talked about their memories of travel. Fusagi enjoyed telling her about how he had travelled here, or where he had visited there. She would look at him with a smile and add, ‘ I went there too ,’ and both of them would become engrossed in the conversation. She had come to enjoy this kind of casual exchange.

‘I guess so. I’ll pick up the conversation when we get home,’ she said and went back to sitting at the counter, resigned to leaving it at that for now.

‘But you seem happy with things,’ Nagare observed.