Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Fumiko sat upright. ‘Even that I can live with. It’s OK if nothing changes. Things can stay as they are.’ She got up and went over to Kazu, invading her space a little. Gently placing a coffee cup in front of Fusagi, Kazu’s brow settled into a frown. She took a couple of steps back.

‘Right… ah,’ she said.

Fumiko drew in even closer. ‘So transport me… to one week ago!’

It was as if her doubts had been washed away. No longer was there any hint of uncertainty in her speech. If anything, there was just excitement at the chance of returning to the past. Her nostrils were flaring with enthusiasm.

‘Um… but—’

Becoming uncomfortable with Fumiko’s overbearing attitude, Kazu darted around her and moved back behind the counter as if seeking refuge.

‘One more important rule,’ she began.

In response to these words, Fumiko’s eyebrows widened considerably. ‘What? There are more rules?’

‘You can’t meet people who haven’t visited this cafe. The present cannot change. There is only one seat that takes you to the past, and you cannot move from it. Then, there is the time limit.’ Fumiko counted on her fingers as she ran through each rule, and her anger at them grew.

‘This one is probably the most problematic.’

Fumiko was already extremely annoyed with the rules she knew. The news of a further, most problematic rule threatened to snap her heart in two. Nevertheless, she bit her lip.

‘If that’s the case, then fine, so be it. Go on, tell me,’ she said, folding her arms and nodding to Kazu, as if to emphasize her resolve.

Kazu drew a short breath as if to say, I will then , and vanished into the kitchen, to put away the transparent glass carafe she had been holding.

Left standing there alone, Fumiko took a deep breath to feel more centred. Her initial aim had been to return to the past to somehow stop Goro going to America.

Stopping him from going sounded bad, but if she confessed, I don’t want you to go , Goro might give up the idea of leaving. If things went well, they might end up never splitting up. At any rate, the initial reason for wanting to go back to the past was to change the present .

But if it wasn’t possible to change the present, then Goro going to America and them splitting up were also unchangeable. Regardless, Fumiko still yearned passionately to return to the past – all she wanted to do was to go back and see. Her entire objective was centred on the actual act of going back. Her heart was set on experiencing this fantastical phenomenon.

She didn’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. It might be a good thing, and how could it be a bad thing? she told herself. After she finished a deep breath, Kazu returned. Fumiko’s face stiffened like an accused awaiting the court’s decision. Kazu stood behind the counter.

‘It is only possible to go back in time when seated at a particular seat in this cafe,’ she proclaimed. Fumiko reacted instantly.

‘Which one? Where should I sit?’ She looked around the cafe so rapidly she almost made a whooshing sound as she turned her head from side to side.

Ignoring her reaction, Kazu turned her head and looked fixedly at the woman in the white dress.

Fumiko followed her constant gaze.

‘That seat,’ Kazu said quietly.

‘That one? The one the woman’s sitting in?’ Fumiko whispered across the counter while keeping her eyes glued on the woman in the dress.

‘Yes,’ Kazu answered simply.

Yet even before she had finished hearing that short reply, Fumiko was already walking up to the woman in the white dress.

She was a woman who gave the impression that fortune had passed her by. Her white, almost translucent skin contrasted starkly with her long black hair. It may have been spring, but the weather was definitely still chilly on bare skin. Yet the woman was wearing short sleeves, and there was no sign she had a jacket with her. Fumiko was getting the feeling that something was not right. But now was not the time to be concerned with such things.

Fumiko spoke to the woman.

‘Er, excuse me, would you mind awfully if we swapped seats?’ she asked, holding back her impatience. She thought she had spoken politely and without rudeness; yet the woman in the dress did not react. It was as if she had not even heard her. Fumiko felt a little put out by this. On some rare occasions a person can be so engrossed in a book she does not hear the surrounding voices and sounds. Fumiko assumed that was the case here.

She tried again.

‘Hello?… Can you hear me?’

‘…’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

The voice came unexpectedly from behind Fumiko. It was Kazu. It took her a while to work out what she meant by it.

I only wanted her to give me the seat. Why was I wasting my time? Was I wasting my time asking politely? Wait. Is this another rule? Do I have to clear this other rule first? If that’s the case, I think she could say something a bit more helpful than ‘You’re wasting your time’…

Such were the thoughts that were running through her mind. Yet in the end she asked a simple question.

‘Why?’ she asked Kazu with a look of childlike innocence. Kazu looked directly into her eyes.

‘Because that woman… is a ghost,’ she responded sternly. She sounded deadly serious and like she was telling the absolute truth.

Once again, Fumiko’s head was filled with racing thoughts.

Ghost? A real moaning shrieking ghost? The sort that appears under a weeping willow in the summer? The girl just said it so casually – maybe I misheard? But what sounds like ‘is a ghost’?

Fumiko’s head was awash with many confusing thoughts. ‘Ghost?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re messing with me.’

‘No, honestly, she’s a ghost.’

Fumiko was bewildered. She was happy not to get stuck on questioning whether or not ghosts actually exist. But what she couldn’t accept was the possibility that the woman in the dress was a ghost. She seemed far too real.

‘Look, I can clearly…’

‘See her.’ Kazu finished her sentence as if she knew what Fumiko was going to say.

Fumiko was confused. ‘But…’

Without thinking, she stretched her hand out towards the woman’s shoulder. Just as she was about to touch the woman in the dress, Kazu said, ‘You can touch her.’

Again, Kazu had a ready reply. Fumiko placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder as if to confirm that she could be touched. Without a doubt, she could feel the woman’s shoulder and the material of the dress covering her soft skin. She couldn’t believe that this was a ghost.

She gently removed her hand. Then once again she placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. She turned to Kazu as if to say, I can clearly touch her, calling this person a ghost is crazy!

But Kazu’s face remained cool and composed. ‘She’s a ghost.’

‘Really? A ghost?’

Fumiko poked her head towards the woman and looked her squarely in the face, quite rudely.

‘Yes,’ Kazu replied, with utmost certainty.

‘No way. I just can’t believe it.’

If Fumiko could see her but was unable to touch her, then she could have accepted it. But this was not the case. She could touch the woman, who had legs. The title of the book the woman was reading was one she had never heard of. It was a normal book, nevertheless – one that you could buy almost anywhere. This led Fumiko to come up with a theory.

You can’t really go back to the past. This cafe can’t really take you back to the past. It is all just a ploy to get people to come. Take the countless number of annoying rules, for example. These are just the first hurdle to encourage customers wanting to return to the past to give up. If the customer passes that first hurdle, then this must be the second hurdle for those customers who still want to go back in time. They mention a ghost to frighten the person into giving up on the idea. The woman in the dress is just for show. She’s pretending to be a ghost.