Before the Coffee Gets Cold

There were three large antique wall clocks in the café. The arms of each, however, showed different times. Was this intentional? Or were they just broken? Customers on their first visit never understood why they were like this. Their only option was to check their watches. [Goro] did likewise. While looking at the time on his watch, he started rubbing his fingers above his right eyebrow while his lower lip began to protrude slightly.

“Even if you return to the past, reveal your feelings, and ask him not to go, it won’t change the present.”

[…]

“Why?” Fumiko asked Kazu, her eyes begging for answers.

“Why? I’ll tell you why,” Kazu began. “Because that’s the rule.” There tends to be, in any movie or novel about time travel, some rule saying, Don’t go meddling in anything that is going to change the present. For example, going back and preventing your parents marrying or meeting would erase the circumstances of your birth and cause your present self to vanish.

This had been the standard state of affairs in most time-travel stories that Fumiko knew, so she believed in the rule: If you change the past, you do change the present. On that basis, she wanted to return to the past and have the chance to do it afresh. Alas, it was a dream that was not to be.

“I know how much your work means to you. I don’t necessarily mind if you go to America. I won’t stand in the way.”

I thought we were going to be together forever. “But, at least…”

Was it only me thinking that?

“I wanted you to discuss it with me. You know, it’s pretty despicable just deciding without talking about it.”

I really, truly…

“That’s just… well, you know…”

…loved you.

“It made me feel forgotten. What I wanted to say was…”

Not that it’s going to change anything…

“Well… I just wanted to say that.”

Fumiko had planned to speak honestly—after all, it wouldn’t change the present. But she couldn’t say it. She felt that saying it would be to admit defeat. She would have hated herself for saying anything like, Which do you choose—work or me? Until she had met Goro, she had always put work first. It was the last thing that she wanted to say. She also didn’t want to be talking like a parody of a woman, especially to a boyfriend three years her junior—she had her pride. She also was perhaps jealous that his career had overtaken her own. So she hadn’t spoken honestly. Anyhow… it was too late.

“Fine then, go… whatever. It’s not as if anything I say will stop you going to America.”

After saying this, Fumiko gulped down the rest of her coffee. “Whoa.”

If, for example, a gunman came from the future and fatally shot a customer—as long as the customer was living in the future, he could not die, even if he had been shot in the heart.

That was the rule.

[…]

The surgeon might say later that if the ambulance had been one minute later or if the bullet had been located one millimeter to the left, the patient would not have survived. All the staff would say that it was a miracle the patient survived. But it wouldn’t be a miracle. It would be because of the rule which dictated that the man who was shot in the past must survive.

Kazu continued with her outlandish plan. After filling the cup with coffee she would offer again: “Would you care for some 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.

[…]

“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 traveling back in time who had to follow annoying rules.

[…] When the sun begins to set and the dusk gathers, the kana-kana-kana of the higurashi [cicada] evokes a melancholic mood, and one gets the urge to hurry home.

In the city, the higurashi is seldom heard. This is because, unlike the abura cicada and the min-min cicada, the higurashi likes shady places such as the canopy of a forest, or of cypress groves away from the sun. But living near the café was a single higurashi cicada. When the sun started to set, a continual kana-kana sound could be heard coming from somewhere, shrilling fleetingly and weakly. This was sometimes audible in the café, though as the café was at basement level, you had to strain your ears to hear it—it was that faint.

It was one such August evening.

After closing the café, Nagare sat alone at the counter. The room was lit only by the wall lamps. On the counter, several small paper cranes were lined up—made by Nagare from folded paper napkins. The only sound that could be heard inside the café was the ticking of the wall clocks. The only things moving were Nagare’s hands.

“Will Mama’s baby be lonely? Will that make you cry?” [Kei] talked to the child as she always did. “I might only be able to have you, my child. Will you forgive me?”

She listened, but no answer came.

A stream of tears flowed down her cheeks.

“I’m scared…the thought of not being there for my child is frightening,” she said, looking directly at Nagare. “I don’t know what I should do. I want my child to be happy. How can such a simple wish be so terribly scary?” she cried.

Nagare gave no reply. He just gazed at the paper cranes on the counter.

The woman in the dress closed her novel. She hadn’t finished it: a white bookmark with a red ribbon tied to it was left inserted between the pages. Hearing the book close, Kei looked over at her. The woman in the dress looked back at Kei and just went on staring at her.

With her eyes fixed on Kei, the woman in the dress gently blinked just once. Then she smoothly got up from her seat. It was as if that blink had been meant to communicate something, yet she walked behind Nagare and Kohtake and disappeared into the bathroom as if she was being drawn inside.

Her seat—that seat—was vacant.

[…] People don’t see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind.

[…]

Until now, Kazu had never sought to challenge or influence people’s opinions or behavior. This was because her own feelings didn’t form part of the filter through which she interacted with the world. Whatever happened, she tried not to influence it by keeping herself at a safe distance. That was Kazu’s place—it was her way of life.

[…] But this was different. She had made a promise. She was encouraging Kei to go to the future, and her actions were having a direct influence on Kei’s future. It crossed Kei’s mind that Kazu must have her reasons for her out-of-character behavior, but those reasons were not immediately apparent.

I was so absorbed in the things I couldn’t change, I forgot the most important thing.

Filling in for her, Fumiko had been by Miki’s side for these fifteen years. Nagare had been there for Miki as her father, showering her with love, no doubt going some way to make up for her absence. Also filling in for her, Kazu had lavished Miki with kindness, playing the role of mother and big sister. She realized that there had been all these loving people around Miki, earnestly supporting her growth for the fifteen years she had been gone, wishing for her happiness.

The magazine piece on the urban legend had stated, “At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present does not change. So it raises the question: just what is the point of that chair?”

But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.

But with her cool expression, she will just say, “Drink your coffee before it gets cold.”