Before the Coffee Gets Cold

In a tiny, out-of-the-way café in Tokyo called Funiculi Funicula, waitress Kazu Tokita and regular customer Yaeko Hirai listen to Fumiko Kiyokawa tell the story of her recent breakup. Two weeks earlier, Fumiko’s boyfriend Goro Katada asked her to come to Funiculi Funicula for a conversation about their future. Instead of proposing to Fumiko as she expected, Goro casually broke up with her to fulfill his dream of working for a game development company in America.

Now, Fumiko recalls reading an article about the café’s rumored ability to send its customers back in time. Longing for a chance to visit the past and convince Goro not to break up with her, Fumiko asks Kazu and Hirai if the café really does have this power. Kazu reluctantly admits that it does, but she explains that the café’s time-travel is governed by a strict set of rules. First and most importantly, nothing the time travelers do in the past can impact the present. Second, time travelers can only visit others who have been in the same café at some point. Third, customers must sit in a particular seat to travel in time. Moving from the seat will immediately send them back to the present. Finally, time travelers can only stay in the past until their coffee gets cold. If they fail to finish their coffee before it gets cold, they risk becoming stuck in the seat forever as a ghost of themselves.

At first, Fumiko is disappointed that time travel won’t resolve her problems in the present. She eventually comes around to the idea of simply having a conversation with Goro and resolves to try the seat anyway. However, the seat is currently occupied by a ghost, the woman who last failed to drink her coffee in time. Kazu tells Fumiko that she has to wait for the ghost to go to the bathroom.

A bit later, Kazu wakes Fumiko and informs her that the ghost has gone to the bathroom. Fumiko eagerly takes the seat, and Kazu pours her a cup of coffee. When Fumiko next opens her eyes, she’s in the moment just after Goro broke up with her. Goro starts to brush her off and leave like he did before, but Fumiko awkwardly stops him and asks him to talk to her. She confesses that she doesn’t want him to forget about her but promises that she wouldn’t stand in the way of his dreams. In response to her admission, Goro tells Fumiko that he always felt unworthy of a relationship with her, so he’s resisted falling in love. As she starts to fade back into the present, Goro smiles and asks Fumiko to wait three years for him to return from America. Back in the present, Fumiko asks Kazu if it’s possible to alter the future, despite the present remaining the same. Smiling, Kazu tells her that it’s up to her. Fumiko thanks Kazu and leaves the café.

Later that summer, Kumi sits in the café and writes a letter to Hirai, her sister. She finishes it and hands it to Kei Tokita. Kumi asks Kei to tell Hirai that their parents aren’t angry at Hirai anymore and leaves. With Kumi gone, Hirai emerges from under the counter, where she was hiding from her sister. Kei tries to get Hirai to accept the letter, but Hirai leaves the café, telling Kei to throw the letter away.

Kazu starts her shift and chats with Fusagi, a regular patron who reads travel magazines. He reveals that he wants to go back in time to hand a letter to his wife. When Kazu asks him where his wife is, Fusagi’s face falls and he looks confused, admitting that he doesn’t know. Kohtake enters the café and greets Fusagi, but he doesn’t know who she is. Looking crushed, Kohtake takes a seat at the counter. Fusagi has early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, a disorder that causes a gradual decline in memory and cognitive function. Kohtake is his wife, and today is the first day that he’s forgotten her entirely. After Fusagi leaves, Kohtake tells Kei and Kazu that Fusagi has been calling her by her maiden name for months now, and that she has resigned herself to caring for him as a nurse instead of a wife for the rest of his life. Suddenly, the ghost stands up and goes to the bathroom, prompting Kohtake to wonder why Fusagi wanted to travel back in time. Kazu tells her about the letter he’d like to give Kohtake. Hearing this, Kei insists that Kohtake should go to the past to receive the letter from Fusagi in a time when he still remembers who she is. Kohtake agrees, and Kazu pours her coffee.

Kohtake opens her eyes and finds herself in the now-empty café, about two years in the past. Fusagi enters and looks at her with a strange expression. Although Kohtake tries to act normal, Fusagi quickly deduces that she must be visiting him from the future, and that he must have forgotten her in Kohtake’s time. Seeing his unhappiness, Kohtake tries to make him feel better by lying, telling him that in the future, his Alzheimer’s is cured. He smiles and hands her the letter. As Kohtake fades back into the present, she sees his mouth form the words “thank you.” In the present, Kohtake reads the letter and starts to cry. In the letter, Fusagi asks her to leave him if the prospect of staying with him becomes too hard for her to handle. He tells her that he never wants her to be his nurse—rather, he wants her to live as his wife forever, even if he one day forgets who she is to him. To Kohtake, the letter is proof of the depth of Fusagi’s love for her, which he has always had trouble expressing. As Kohtake leaves the café, she asks Kazu and Kei to stop calling her by her maiden name.

Three days later, the café is empty except for Nagare, the café’s owner, and a girl sitting in the ghost’s seat. Nagare knows that she must be a visitor from the future. He tries to get her to tell him who she’s trying to see, but she refuses to answer. Kazu and Kei enter the café, returning from Kei’s OB-GYN appointment. Kei is newly pregnant. The girl asks Kei for a photo together. Although she’s nonplussed, Kei cheerfully agrees to the photo. After Kazu takes it, the girl drinks the rest of her coffee and disappears.

Kohtake enters the café and asks about Hirai, whose bar has been closed for two days. Nagare grimly explains that Kumi died in a road accident three days ago. Hirai has been with her parents, who run a traveler’s inn in Sendai. Just then, Hirai enters the café and strikes up glib conversation with Kei, Nagare, Kazu, and Kohtake, brushing off their tentative condolences. When Kohtake confronts her about her nonchalance, Hirai admits that her parents refused to speak to her when she went to Sendai, and she came back to Tokyo because she believes she has no place with them. Kei offers Hirai the letter that Kumi left for her before she died, and Hirai finally reads it. The letter says that Kumi wants her sister to come back to Sendai and run the inn. Even so, the letter fills Hirai with guilt, and she asks Kazu to help her go back in time to apologize to Kumi for avoiding her. A bit later, Hirai takes the ghost’s seat and thinks of her love for Kumi—and her regrets about how she handled her parents’ high expectations of her. Kazu pours the coffee.

Opening her eyes to the café as it was three days ago, Hirai apologizes to Kumi and agrees to go home. Kumi starts to cry and tells Hirai that her fondest dream was always to run the inn alongside Hirai. Understanding for the first time that Kumi’s visits were driven by love, Hirai has trouble finishing her coffee and leaving her sister. However, Kei sees that Hirai is in danger of becoming a ghost and begs her to honor Kumi’s memory by going home to run the inn like she promised. Feeling a sense of relief, Hirai finishes her coffee, returns to the present, and leaves the café, resolving to keep her promise to Kumi and gradually heal her relationship with her parents.

Two weeks later, Kei’s pregnancy is progressing poorly. She was born with a serious heart condition, and the pregnancy is already impacting her fragile health. Her doctor has told both her and Nagare that if she carries the baby to term, either she or the baby is extremely likely to die in the birth. Kei has chosen to keep the baby. As her health deteriorates, Kei starts to mourn the fact that she will never meet her child. When the ghost leaves her seat, Kei decides to visit the future and meet her baby. Although Kazu and Nagare are both worried about Kei, Kazu agrees. They decide on a future date when Kazu will bring Kei’s child to the café. Kazu pours the coffee.

Kei opens her eyes in the future to a café empty except for a man she doesn’t recognize working the counter. She supposes that Kazu must have forgotten the date after all, but when the girl who took a photo with her enters the café, she decides to get to know her instead. However, the girl acts shy and ducks into the back. Nagare calls the café, and the man hands the phone to Kei. Nagare explains that she has accidentally travelled too far into the future, but that the girl hiding in the back is, in fact, her daughter. Fumiko enters the café and rushes to the back, encouraging the girl not to waste this chance to meet her mother.

The girl introduces herself as Miki and calls Kei “Mom,” thanking her for the life she’s been given. Both of them cry, and Kei thanks Miki for the chance to be her mother. She finishes her coffee and returns to the present happy, to the relief of her friends and family. That spring, Kei gives birth to Miki. Reflecting on all that has happened, Kei maintains that Funiculi Funicula’s time travel serves a purpose: not to alter the present, but to alter people’s hearts and thus shape the future for the better.