Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I The Lovers

‘Oh gosh, is that the time? Sorry, I have to go,’ the man mumbled evasively, as he stood up and reached for his bag.

‘Eh?’ the woman said.

She glared with uncertainty. She hadn’t heard him say it was over. But he had called her – his girlfriend of three years – to come out for a serious conversation… and now he had suddenly announced he was going to work in America. He was to leave immediately – in a few hours. Even without hearing those words, she knew now that the serious conversation was about breaking up. She knew now it was a mistake to have thought – to have hoped – that the serious conversation might have included ‘Will you marry me?’ for example.

‘What?’ the man responded dryly. He didn’t make eye contact with her.

‘Don’t I deserve an explanation?’ she asked.

The woman spoke using an interrogative tone the man particularly disliked. They were in a windowless basement cafe. The lighting was provided by just six shaded lamps hanging from the ceiling and a single wall lamp near the entrance. A permanent sepia hue stained the cafe interior. Without a clock, there was no way to tell night and day.

There were three large antique wall clocks in the cafe. 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. The man 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.

The woman found that expression particularly exasperating.

‘And why are you looking like that? Like I’m the one being a pain?’ she blurted out.

‘I’m not thinking that,’ he replied sheepishly.

‘Yes you are!’ she insisted.

With bottom lip again protruding, he evaded her stare and offered no reply.

The man’s passive behaviour was infuriating the woman more and more. She scowled. ‘You want it to be me who says it?’

She reached for her coffee, from which all heat had now gone. With the sweetest part of the experience lost, it sent her mood plummeting further.

The man looked at his watch again and counted back from the boarding time. He had to leave the cafe very soon. Unable to compose himself any better, his fingers had found their way back to his eyebrow.

The sight of him so obviously hung up about the time annoyed her. She recklessly plunked the cup down on the table. It came down hard on the saucer. Clang!

The loud noise startled him. His fingers, which had been busy caressing his right eyebrow, began to pull at his hair. But then, after taking a short deep breath, he sat back down and looked her in the face. All of a sudden, his face was calm.

In fact, the man’s face had so clearly changed that the woman was quite taken aback. She looked down and stared at her hands clenched on her lap.

The man who had worried about time didn’t wait for the woman to look up. ‘Now, look…’ he started.

No longer muttering, he sounded collected and together.

But as if she was actively trying to stop short his next words, the woman said, ‘Why don’t you just go?’ She didn’t look up.

The woman who wanted an explanation now refused to hear it. The man sat motionless as if time itself had stopped.

‘It’s time for you to go, isn’t it?’ she said, as petulantly as a child.

He looked at her perplexed, as if he didn’t understand what she meant.

As if she was aware of how childish and unpleasant she sounded, she uncomfortably averted her eyes from the man and bit her lip. He rose from his seat, and spoke to the waitress standing behind the counter.

‘Excuse me, I’d like to pay,’ he said in a small voice.

The man tried to grab the bill, but the woman’s hand was pressing down on it.

‘I’m going to stay a bit longer… so I’ll pay,’ was what she meant to say, but he had pulled out the bill from under her hand with ease and was walking to the cash register.

‘Together, thanks.’

‘Oh, I said leave it.’

Not moving from her chair, the woman reached out her hand to the man.

But the man refused to look at her. He pulled out a thousand-yen note from his wallet.

‘Keep the change,’ he said as he handed the waitress the note together with the bill. The man turned his face filled with sadness to the woman for a split second, as he picked up his bag and left.

‘…and that happened one week ago,’ said Fumiko Kiyokawa.

Her upper body flopped into a heap on the table like a deflating balloon. As she collapsed, she somehow avoided spilling the coffee cup in front of her.

The waitress and the customer seated at the counter who had been listening to Fumiko’s story looked at each other.

Before Fumiko had finished senior high school, she had already mastered six languages. After graduating top of her class from Waseda University, she joined a major medical-related IT firm in Tokyo. By her second year at the firm, she was already directing numerous projects. She was the epitome of the smart, career-driven woman.

Today, Fumiko was dressed in ordinary business attire: a white blouse and black skirt and jacket. Judging by her appearance, she was on her way home from work.

Fumiko’s looks were better than ordinary. Blessed with well-defined features and petite lips, she had the face of a pop idol. Her mid-length black hair shone and crowned her with a glowing halo. Despite her conservative clothes, her exceptional figure was easy to discern. Like a model from a fashion magazine, she was a beautiful woman who would draw anyone’s gaze. Yes, she was a woman who combined intelligence and beauty. But whether she realized this was a different matter.

In the past, Fumiko hadn’t been one to dwell on such things – she had lived only for her work. Of course, this didn’t mean she had never had relationships. It’s just that they never had the same allure for her as work. ‘My work is my lover,’ she would say. She had turned down approaches from many men, as though flicking away specks of dust.

The man she had been talking about was Goro Katada. Goro was a systems engineer, and like Fumiko, he was employed by a medical company, though it wasn’t a major one. He was her boyfriend – he was her boyfriend – and three years her junior. They had met two years ago via a client for which they were both doing a project.

One week ago, Goro had asked Fumiko to meet for a ‘serious conversation’. She had arrived at the meeting place in an elegant pale-pink dress with a beige spring coat and white pumps, having caught the attention of all the men she had passed on the way there. It was a new look for Fumiko. She was such a workaholic that, before her relationship with Goro, she had owned no other clothes but suits. Suits were what she had worn on dates with Goro as well – after all, they mostly met after work.

Goro had said serious conversation, and Fumiko had interpreted this as meaning that the conversation was going to be special. So, filled with expectation, she had bought an outfit especially.

They arrived at their chosen cafe to find a sign on the window saying it was closed due to unforeseen circumstances. Fumiko and Goro were disappointed. The cafe would have been ideal for a serious conversation as each table was in a private booth.

Left with no choice but to find another suitable place, they noticed a small sign down a quiet side street. As it was a basement cafe, they had no way of knowing what it was like inside, but Fumiko was attracted by its name, which came from the lyrics of a song she used to sing as a child, and they agreed to go in.

Fumiko regretted her decision as soon as she peered inside. It was smaller than she had imagined. The cafe had counter and table seats but with just three seats at the counter and three two-seater tables, it only took nine customers to fill the place.

Unless the serious conversation currently weighing on Fumiko’s mind was to be held in whispers, the entire thing would be overheard. Another negative was the way that everything appeared as in sepia owing to the few shaded lamps… it was not to her taste at all.

A place for shady deals…

That was Fumiko’s first impression of this cafe. She nervously made her way to the only empty table and sat down. There were three other customers and one waitress in the cafe.

At the furthest table sat a woman in a white short-sleeved dress quietly reading a book. At the table closest to the entrance sat a dull-looking man. A travel magazine was spread open on the table and he was jotting memos in a tiny notebook. The woman seated at the counter wore a bright red camisole and green leggings. A sleeveless kimono jacket hung on the back of her chair, and she still had curlers in her hair. She glanced fleetingly at Fumiko, grinning broadly as she did. At several points during Fumiko and Goro’s conversation, the woman made a remark to the waitress and let off a raucous laugh.

On hearing Fumiko’s explanation, the woman in curlers said, ‘I see…’

Actually, she didn’t see at all – she was just following up with the appropriate response. Her name was Yaeko Hirai. One of the cafe regulars, she had just turned thirty and ran a nearby snack, or hostess, bar. She always came in for a cup of coffee before work. Her curlers were in again, but today she was wearing a revealing yellow tube top, a bright red miniskirt and vivid purple leggings. Hirai was sitting cross-legged on the counter chair while listening to Fumiko.

‘It was one week ago. You remember, don’t you?’ Fumiko stood up and directed her attention across the counter to the waitress.

‘Hmm… yeah,’ the waitress answered uneasily, not looking at Fumiko’s face.

The waitress’s name was Kazu Tokita. Kazu was a cousin of the proprietor. She was waitressing there while attending Tokyo University of the Arts. She had quite a pretty face, a pale complexion and narrow almond-shaped eyes, yet her features were not memorable. It was the type of face that if you glanced at it, closed your eyes and then tried to remember what you saw, nothing would come to mind. In a word, she was inconspicuous. She had no presence. She didn’t have many friends either. Not that she worried about it – Kazu was the sort of person who found interpersonal relationships rather tedious.

‘So… what about him? Where is he now?’ Hirai asked, playing with the cup in her hand, not seeming very interested.

‘America,’ Fumiko said, puffing out her cheeks.

‘So your boyfriend chose work, then?’ Hirai had a gift for getting to the heart of the matter.

‘No, that’s not right!’ Fumiko protested.

‘Eh? But that is right, isn’t it? He went to America, didn’t he?’ Hirai said. She was having a hard time understanding Fumiko.

‘Didn’t you understand when I explained?’ Fumiko said vehemently.

‘What bit?’

‘I wanted to scream out don’t go but I was too proud.’

‘Not many women would admit that!’ Hirai leant back with a snicker, slipped off balance and nearly fell off the chair.

Fumiko ignored Hirai’s reaction. ‘You understood, right?’ she said, looking for support from Kazu.

Kazu feigned a moment’s contemplation. ‘Basically you’re saying you didn’t want him to go to America, right?’

Kazu was also one to get straight to the point.

‘Well basically, I guess… no, I didn’t. But…’

‘You’re a difficult one to understand,’ Hirai said jovially, after seeing that Fumiko was struggling to reply.

If Hirai had been in Fumiko’s place, she would have just broken down in tears. ‘Don’t go!’ she would have screamed. Of course, they would have been crocodile tears. Tears are a woman’s weapon. That was Hirai’s philosophy.

Fumiko turned to Kazu at the middle of the counter. Her eyes were glistening. ‘Anyway, I want you to transport me back to that day… that day one week ago!’ she pleaded, totally straight-faced.

Hirai was first to respond to the lunacy of requesting to be sent back to one week ago. ‘Back in time, she says…’ She looked to Kazu with raised eyebrows.

Looking uncomfortable, Kazu simply muttered, ‘Oh…’ and didn’t add anything further.

Several years had passed since the cafe had its moment of fame in the light of an urban legend that claimed it could transport people back to the past. Uninterested in that kind of thing, Fumiko had allowed it to fade from her memory. Visiting a week ago was complete happenstance. But last night, she had watched a variety programme on TV. In the introduction, the host spoke about ‘urban legends’, and like a bolt of lightning striking inside her head, she remembered the cafe. The cafe that transports you back in time. It was an incomplete memory, but she remembered that key phrase clearly.

If I return to the past, I might be able to set things right. I might be able to have a conversation with Goro once more. She replayed this fanciful wish over and over in her mind. She became obsessed and lost any ability to make a level-headed judgement.

The next morning she went to work, completely forgetting to eat breakfast. There, her mind was not on the job. She sat there, obsessed with the passing time. I just want to make sure. She wanted to find out either way as soon as possible – and not a second later. Her day at work was a long string of careless mistakes. So sporadic was her attention that a colleague asked if she was OK. By the end of the day, she had reached peak scatterbrain.

It took her thirty minutes to get from her company to the cafe by train. She pretty much ran the last stretch from the station. Entering the cafe feeling quite breathless, she’d walked up to Kazu.

‘Please send me back to the past!’ she’d pleaded before Kazu could even finish saying, Hello, welcome.

Her animated gestures had continued in that vein until she had finished her explanation. But now, looking at the reaction of the two women, she felt ill at ease.

Hirai just continued to stare at her with a large smirk on her face, while Kazu wore a deadpan expression and avoided all eye contact.

If it was true about going back in time, I guess the place would be thronging with people, Fumiko thought to herself. But the only people in this cafe were the woman in the white dress, the man with his travel magazine, and Hirai and Kazu – the same faces that were here a week ago.

‘It’s possible to go back, right?’ she asked, uneasily.

It may have been prudent to begin with this question. But it was pointless to realize this now.

‘Well, is it or not?’ she asked, staring directly at Kazu on the other side of the counter.

‘Hmm. Ah…’ Kazu replied.

Fumiko’s eyes once again lit up. She was not hearing a no. An air of excitement started to surround her.

‘Please send me back!’

She pleaded so energetically that she seemed about to leap over the counter.

‘You want to go back and do what?’ asked Hirai coolly, between sips of her tepid coffee.

‘I’d make amends.’ Her face was serious.

‘I see…’ said Hirai with a shrug.

‘Please!’ She spoke louder; the word reverberated throughout the cafe.

It was only recently that the idea of marrying Goro had occurred to her. She was turning twenty-eight this year, and she had been interrogated on many occasions by her persistent parents, who lived in Hakodate – Still not thinking of marriage? Haven’t you met any nice men? and so forth. Her parents’ nagging had grown more intense since her twenty-five-year-old sister got married the year before. Now it had reached the point where she was receiving weekly emails. Aside from her younger sister, Fumiko also had a twenty-three-year-old brother. He had married a girl from their home town following a surprise pregnancy, leaving only Fumiko single.

Fumiko felt no rush, but after her little sister got married, her mindset had changed just a little. She had started to think getting married might be OK if it was to Goro.

Hirai plucked a cigarette from her leopard-print pouch.

‘Perhaps you’d best explain it to her properly… don’t you think?’ she said in a businesslike manner while lighting it.

‘It seems like I should,’ Kazu replied in her toneless voice as she walked around the counter and stood before Fumiko. She looked at her with a soft kindness in her eyes as if she were consoling a crying child.

‘Look. I want you to listen, and listen carefully. OK?’

‘What?’ Fumiko’s body tensed up.

‘You can go back. It’s true… you can go back, but…’

‘But…?’

‘When you go back, no matter how hard you try, the present won’t change.’

The present won’t change. This was something Fumiko was totally unprepared for – something she couldn’t take in. ‘Eh?’ she said loudly without thinking.

Kazu calmly continued explaining. ‘Even if you go back to the past and tell your… um, boyfriend who went to America how you feel…’

‘Even if I tell him how I feel?’

‘The present won’t change.’

‘What?’ Not wanting to hear, Fumiko desperately covered her ears.

But Kazu casually went on to say the words that she least wanted to hear. ‘It won’t change the fact that he’s gone to America.’

A trembling sensation swept through her entire body.

Yet with what seemed like a ruthless disregard for her feelings, Kazu continued with her explanation.

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

Fumiko reacted impulsively to Kazu’s cold hard words. ‘That sort of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?’ she said defiantly.

‘Easy now… let’s not shoot the messenger,’ Hirai said. She took a drag of her cigarette, and seemed unsurprised by Fumiko’s reaction.

‘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.

She wanted a convincing explanation as to why this unbelievable rule existed, that there is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present. The only explanation that Kazu would give was to say, Because that’s the rule. Was she trying to tease her in a friendly way, by not telling her the reason? Or was it a difficult concept that she was unable to explain? Or perhaps she didn’t understand the reason either, as her casual expression seemed to suggest.

Hirai seemed to be relishing the sight of Fumiko’s expression. ‘Tough luck,’ she said, exhaling a plume of smoke with obvious pleasure.

She had drafted that line earlier when Fumiko had begun her explanation, and had been waiting to deliver it ever since.

‘But… why?’ Fumiko felt the energy drain from her body. As she let herself slouch limply into her chair, a vivid recollection came to her. She had read an article on this cafe in a magazine. The article had the headline ‘Uncovering Truth Behind “Time-Travelling Cafe” Made Famous by Urban Legend’. The gist of the article was as follows.

The cafe’s name was Funiculi Funicula. It had become famous, with long queues each day, on account of the time-travelling. But it wasn’t possible to find anyone who had actually gone back in time, because of the extremely annoying rules that had to be followed. The first rule was: The only people you can meet while in the past are those who have visited the cafe. This would usually defeat the purpose of going back. Another rule was: There is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present. The cafe was asked why that rule existed, but their only comment was that they didn’t know.

As the author of the article was unable to find anyone who had actually visited the past, whether or not it was actually possible to go back in time remained a mystery. Even supposing it was possible, the sticky point of not being able to change the present certainly made the whole idea seem pointless.

The article concluded by stating that it certainly made an interesting urban legend, but it was difficult to see why the legend existed. As a postscript, the article also mentioned there were apparently other rules that had to be followed but it was unclear what they were.

Fumiko’s attention returned to the cafe. Hirai seated herself opposite her at the table she had collapsed onto and proceeded to merrily explain the other rules. With her head and shoulders still sprawled on the table, Fumiko fixed her eyes on the sugar pot, wondering why the cafe didn’t use sugar cubes, and quietly listened.

‘It’s not just those rules. There’s only one seat that allows you to go back in time, OK? And, while in the past, you can’t move from that seat,’ Hirai said. ‘What else was there?’ she asked Kazu, as she moved her count to her fifth finger.

‘There’s a time limit,’ Kazu said, keeping her eyes on the glass she was wiping. She mentioned it like an afterthought, as if she were merely talking to herself.

Fumiko raised her head in reaction to this news. ‘A time limit?’

Kazu showed a slight smile, and nodded.

Hirai gave the table a nudge. ‘Frankly, after hearing just these rules, barely anyone still wants to return to the past,’ she said, apparently enjoying herself. And she was indeed taking great delight in observing Fumiko. ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a customer like you – someone totally set in your delusion of wanting to go back to the past.’

‘Hirai…’ Kazu said sternly.

‘Life doesn’t get served to you on a plate. Why don’t you just give it up?’ Hirai blurted out. She looked ready to continue her tirade.

‘Hirai…’ Kazu repeated, this time with a bit more emphasis.

‘No. No, I think it’s best to clearly put it out there. Huh?’ Then Hirai guffawed loudly.

The words spoken were all too much for Fumiko. Her strength had entirely drained from her body, and again she collapsed head and shoulders onto the table.

Then, from across the room… ‘Can I have a refill, please?’ said the man sitting at the table closest to the entrance with his travel magazine opened out in front of him.

‘OK,’ Kazu called back.

A woman had entered the cafe alone. She was wearing a beige cardigan over a pale aqua shirt-dress and crimson trainers, and carrying a white canvas bag. Her eyes were round and sparkling like a little girl’s.

‘Hello.’ Kazu’s voice boomed through the cafe.

‘Hi, Kazu.’

‘Sis! Hi there!’

Kazu called her sis, but actually she was her cousin’s wife, Kei Tokita.

‘Looks like the cherry blossoms have had it.’ Kei smiled, showing no grief at their passing.

‘Yes, the trees are pretty bare now.’ Kazu’s tone was polite, but not the same polite, civil tone she had used when speaking to Fumiko. Her tone now sounded softer and more like a dove.

‘Good evening,’ said Hirai as she moved from the seat at Fumiko’s table to the counter, appearing to be no longer interested in laughing at Fumiko’s misfortune. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Hospital.’

‘What for? Just a routine check-up?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got a bit of colour in your face today.’

‘Yes, I feel good.’

Glancing over at Fumiko still limp at the table, Kei tilted her head inquisitively. Hirai gave a slight nod, and with that, Kei disappeared into the room behind the counter.

Soon after Kei had disappeared into the back room, a large man poked his head through the doorway, bowing his head to stop it banging into the doorframe. He was wearing a light jacket over his chef’s uniform of white shirt and black trousers. A huge bundle of keys was jingling in his right hand. He was Nagare Tokita, the owner of the cafe.

‘Good evening,’ Kazu greeted him.

Nagare nodded in response and turned his eyes to the man with the magazine at the table closest to the entrance.

Kazu went into the kitchen to bring a refill for the empty coffee cup that Hirai was silently holding up, while Hirai, leaning with one elbow on the counter, quietly observed Nagare.

Nagare was standing in front of the man who was engrossed in his magazine. ‘Fusagi,’ he said gently.

For a moment, the man called Fusagi didn’t react, as if it hadn’t registered that his name had been called. Then he looked up slowly at Nagare.

Nagare nodded politely, and said, ‘Hello.’

‘Oh, hello,’ Fusagi said, with a blank expression. He immediately returned to his magazine. For a moment, Nagare continued to stand there looking at him.

‘Kazu,’ he called to the kitchen.

Kazu poked her face out from the kitchen. ‘What is it?’

‘Ring Kohtake for me, please.’

The request puzzled Kazu for a while.

‘Yes, because she’s been looking,’ Nagare said, as he turned to face Fusagi.

Kazu understood what he meant. ‘Oh… Right,’ she replied.

After giving Hirai a refill, she disappeared into the back room again to make the phone call.

Nagare cast a sideways glance at Fumiko slumped over the table as he walked behind the counter and took a glass from the shelf. He pulled out a carton of orange juice from the fridge under the counter, poured it nonchalantly into the glass, and gulped it down.

Nagare took the glass into the kitchen to wash it. A moment later, there was the sound of fingernails tapping on the counter.

He poked his head out of the kitchen to see what was happening.

Hirai made a small beckoning gesture. With dripping hands, he approached quietly. She leaned a little over the counter.

‘How was it?’ she whispered to him as he searched for some kitchen paper.

‘Hmm…’ he mumbled, ambiguously. Maybe it was somehow an answer to the question, or maybe it was just a frustrated grunt while looking for the elusive kitchen paper. Hirai lowered her voice further.

‘How were the test results?’

Not replying to this question, Nagare briefly scratched the top of his nose.

‘They were bad?’ Hirai asked more sombrely.

Nagare’s expression did not falter.

‘After looking at the results, they decided she doesn’t need to be hospitalized,’ he explained in a low mumble, almost as if he was talking to himself.

Hirai gave a quiet sigh. ‘I see…’ she said and glanced towards the back room where Kei was.

Kei was born with a weak heart. Throughout her life, she had been in and out of hospital. Nevertheless, having been blessed all her life with a friendly and carefree disposition, she could always manage a smile, no matter how bad her condition got. Hirai was all too familiar with that aspect of her. That was why she checked with Nagare.

Nagare had finally located the kitchen paper and was wiping his hands. ‘And how are things with you, Hirai? Are they OK?’

Hirai wasn’t sure what Nagare was asking about. Her eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your sister has been coming to see you a fair bit, hasn’t she?’

‘Ah. I guess she has,’ Hirai answered while she looked around the cafe.

‘Your parents run a travellers’ inn, right?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

Nagare didn’t know about things in much detail, but he had heard that as a result of Hirai having left the family home, her sister had taken over running the inn.

‘It must be tough for your sister, alone like that.’

‘Nah, she’s coping all right. My sister’s got the right head for handling that kind of work.’

‘But still…’

‘It’s been too long. I can’t go home now,’ Hirai snapped.

She pulled out a large purse from her leopard-skin pouch. It was so big, it looked more like a dictionary than a purse. Her purse jingled as she began foraging among the coins.

‘Why not?’

‘Even if I went home, I wouldn’t be any help,’ she said, tilting her head with a silly smile.

‘But…’

‘Anyway, thanks for the coffee. I have to go,’ she said, cutting Nagare short. She put the coffee money on the counter, then got up and walked out of the door, as if she was running away from the conversation.

While picking up the coins that Hirai had left, Nagare glanced at Fumiko slumped on the table. But it was just a glance. He didn’t seem very interested in who this woman was, face down on the table. He collected up the coins in his large hands and playfully jangled them.

‘Hey, bro.’ Kazu’s face appeared as she called out. Kazu called Nagare ‘bro’ despite him being her cousin, not her brother.

‘What?’

‘Sis is calling you.’

Nagare looked around the cafe. ‘OK, coming,’ he said. He casually placed the coins in Kazu’s hand.

‘Kohtake said she’ll come straight away,’ Kazu said.

Nagare received the news with a nod. ‘Look after the cafe, could you?’ He disappeared into the back room.

‘OK,’ she said.

The only people in the cafe, though, were the woman reading a novel, Fumiko, who was slumped over the table, and Fusagi, who was taking notes from the magazine spread open on the table. After depositing the coins in the cash register, Kazu cleared away the coffee cup left by Hirai. One of the cafe’s three old wall clocks sounded five deep resonating gongs.

‘Coffee, please.’

Fusagi called over to Kazu behind the counter, holding up his coffee cup as he spoke. He had yet to receive the refill he had already asked for.

‘Oh… right!’ exclaimed Kazu, realizing, and hurried back to the kitchen. She came out again holding a transparent glass carafe filled with coffee.

‘Even that would be OK,’ muttered Fumiko still slumped on the table.

While Kazu was pouring a refill for Fusagi, Fumiko’s presence in the corner of her vision attracted her attention.

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.

Fumiko was beginning to feel quite stubborn.

If it’s all a lie, then so be it. But I’m not going to be fooled by this lie.

Fumiko addressed the woman in the dress politely. ‘Look, it will only be for a short while. Please would you kindly allow me to sit there.’

But it was as if her words hadn’t reached the woman’s ears. She continued reading without the slightest reaction.

Being totally ignored like this darkened Fumiko’s mood. She grabbed the woman’s upper arm.

‘Stop! You mustn’t do that!’ warned Kazu loudly.

‘Hey! Just stop it! Stop just ignoring me!’

Fumiko tried to forcefully drag the woman in the dress from her seat.

And then it happened… The woman in the dress’s eyes widened and she glared at her fiercely.

She felt as if the weight of her body had increased many times over. It felt as if dozens of heavy blankets had fallen over her. The light in the cafe dimmed to the brightness of candlelight. An unworldly wailing began to reverberate through the cafe.

She was paralysed. Unable to move a muscle, she dropped to her knees and then fell to a crawling position.

‘Ugh! What’s happening? What’s happening?’

She had absolutely no idea what was happening. Kazu, in a smug, told-you-so kind of way, simply said, ‘She cursed you.’

When Fumiko heard curse, she didn’t understand at first.

‘Huh?’ she asked with a groan.

Unable to withstand this invisible force that seemed to be getting stronger, Fumiko was now lying face down on the floor.

‘What? What is this? What’s going on?’

‘It’s a curse. You went ahead and did what you did, and she cursed you,’ said Kazu as she slipped back into the kitchen, leaving Fumiko sprawled on the floor.

Lying face down, Fumiko didn’t see Kazu go, but with one ear firmly against the floor, she clearly heard Kazu leave by the sound of her fading footsteps. Her fear was so intense, Fumiko shivered as if icy water had been poured over her entire body.

‘You’ve got to be kidding. Look at me! What can I do?’

There was no response. Fumiko started shuddering.

The woman in the dress was still glaring at Fumiko with a terrifying expression. She seemed a completely different person to the woman who had been calmly reading her book just moments earlier.

‘Help me! Please help me!’ Fumiko yelled out to the kitchen.

Kazu calmly returned. Fumiko could not see this, but Kazu was holding a glass carafe of coffee in her hand. Fumiko heard her footsteps coming towards her, but she had no idea what was happening – first the rules, then the ghost, and now the curse. It was all utterly bewildering.

Kazu hadn’t even given her any indication whether she meant to help her or not. Fumiko was on the verge of yelling Help! at the top of her lungs.

But right at that moment…

‘Would you care for some more coffee?’ Fumiko heard Kazu asking nonchalantly.

Fumiko was incensed. Ignoring her in her moment of need, Kazu was not only not helping, she was offering the woman in the dress some more coffee. Fumiko was dumbfounded. I was clearly told that she was a ghost, and it was wrong of me not to believe it. It was also wrong of me to grab on to the woman’s arm and try to forcefully remove her from her chair. But even though I’ve been yelling ‘Help me!’ the girl has just been ignoring me and now she is breezily asking that woman if she wants more coffee! Why would a ghost be wanting another coffee!

‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ was all that Fumiko was able to vocalize, however.

But without hesitation, ‘Yes, please,’ an eerily ethereal voice replied.

It was the woman in the dress who had spoken. Suddenly, Fumiko’s body felt lighter.

‘Aah…’

The curse had been lifted. Fumiko, unencumbered and panting, stood upright on her knees and glared at Kazu.

Kazu returned her gaze, as if to ask, You have something to say? and shrugged with indifference. The woman in the dress took a sip from her freshly poured coffee and then returned quietly to her book.

Acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, Kazu disappeared back to the kitchen to return the carafe. Fumiko once more reached her hand out to touch the shoulder of that terrifying woman in the dress. Her fingers could feel her. The woman is here. She exists.

Unable to understand such weird events, Fumiko was completely confused. She had experienced the whole thing – she couldn’t dispute that. Her body had been pushed down by an invisible force. Though she could not make sense of things in her head, her heart had already fathomed the situation well enough to be pumping gallons of blood through her body.

She stood up and walked towards the counter, feeling quite dizzy. By the time she had made her way there, Kazu had returned from the kitchen.

‘Is she really a ghost?’ Fumiko asked Kazu.

‘Yes,’ was Kazu’s only reply. She had started topping up the sugar pot with sugar.

So, this totally impossible thing happened… Fumiko once more began to hypothesize. If the ghost… and the curse… really happened, then what they say about going back in time might also really be true!

Experiencing the curse had convinced Fumiko that you can go back. But there was a problem.

It was that rule – in order to go back to the past, you have to sit in one particular seat. Sitting in that one particular seat, however, is a ghost. Anything I say doesn’t get through to her. And when I tried to sit there forcefully, she cursed me. What am I meant to do?

‘You just have to wait,’ Kazu said, as if she could hear Fumiko’s thoughts.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Every day, there is just one moment when she goes to the toilet.’

‘A ghost needs to go to the toilet?’

‘While she’s gone, you can sit there.’

Fumiko stared hard into Kazu’s eyes. She gave a small nod. That seemed to be the only solution. As to Fumiko’s question of whether ghosts go to the toilet, Kazu was unsure of whether it was genuine curiosity or meant for comedic effect and decided to ignore it with a deadpan expression.

Fumiko drew a deep breath. A moment ago she had been grasping at straws. Now she had a piece of straw in her hand, and she wasn’t going to let it go. She once had read a story about a man who traded his way up from one piece of straw to become a millionaire. If she was to become a straw millionaire, she mustn’t waste that straw.

‘OK… I’ll wait. I’ll wait!’

‘Fine, but you should know that she doesn’t differentiate between day and night.’

‘Yes. OK, I’ll wait,’ Fumiko said, desperately clutching her straw. ‘What time do you close?’

‘Regular opening hours are until eight p.m. But if you decide you want to wait, you can wait for as long as it takes.’

‘Thank you!’

Fumiko sat down at the middle of the three tables. She sat with her chair facing the woman in the dress. She folded her arms and breathed hard through her nose.

‘I’m going to get that seat!’ she announced, glaring at the woman in the dress. The woman in the dress was reading her book, as always.

Kazu gave a little sigh.

‘Hello. Good evening!’ said Kazu, delivering her standard greeting. ‘Kohtake!’

Standing in the open doorway was a woman. She looked like she might be a little over forty.

Kohtake was wearing a navy blue cardigan over a nurse’s uniform and carrying a plain shoulder bag. Breathing a little heavily as if she had been running, she held her hand on her chest as if to steady her breath.

‘Thanks for calling,’ she said. She spoke quickly.

Kazu nodded with a smile and disappeared into the kitchen. Kohtake took two or three steps towards the table closest to the entrance and stood next to the man called Fusagi. He didn’t seem to notice her at all.

‘Fusagi,’ Kohtake said in a gentle tone that one would normally reserve for a child.

At first, Fusagi showed no reaction, as if he hadn’t noticed that she had called him. But noticing her in his peripheral vision, he turned to her with a vacant stare.

‘Kohtake,’ he muttered.

‘Yes. It’s me,’ Kohtake said with clear articulation.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I had some time off and I thought I might have a cup of coffee.’

‘Oh… OK,’ Fusagi said.

He once more cast his eyes down to his magazine. Kohtake, continuing to look at him, sat casually down in the seat opposite. He didn’t react to this and instead turned the page of his magazine.

‘I hear you’ve been coming here a lot lately,’ Kohtake said while studying every nook and cranny of the cafe like a customer who was visiting for the first time.

‘Yeah,’ Fusagi said simply.

‘So you’ve taken a liking to this place?’

‘Oh… not particularly,’ he said, in a way that clearly showed that he had indeed taken a liking to the place. A slight smile formed on his lips.

‘I’m waiting,’ he whispered.

‘What are you waiting for?’

He turned and looked over at the seat where the woman in the dress was sitting.

‘For her to leave that seat,’ he answered. His face betrayed a boyish glimmer.

Fumiko hadn’t particularly been eavesdropping but the cafe was small. ‘What!’ she exclaimed in surprise at learning that Fusagi was likewise waiting for the woman in the dress to go to the toilet so he could return to the past.

Hearing Fumiko’s voice, Kohtake turned to look at her, but Fusagi paid no attention to her himself.

‘Is that so?’ Kohtake asked.

‘Yeah,’ was all that Fusagi said in reply as he took a sip of his coffee.

Fumiko was shaken. Please don’t let me have competition.

After all… she instantly realized that it was her who was at a disadvantage should they both have the same objective. When she had entered the cafe, Fusagi was already there. Since he was here first, it was his turn first. As a matter of common courtesy, she was not going to jump the queue. The woman in the dress only went to the toilet once a day. Therefore there was only one chance to sit in the seat each day.

Fumiko wanted to go back in time right away. She was unable to bear the thought that she might have to wait an extra day, and was unable to hide her agitation at this unexpected development. She leaned sideways and cocked her ear to make sure that Fusagi really did intend to return to the past.

‘Did you get to sit there today?’ Kohtake asked.

‘Not today.’

‘Oh, you couldn’t sit there?’

‘Yeah… no.’

Their conversation was doing nothing to allay her worst fears. Fumiko scrunched up her face.

‘Fusagi, what do you want to do when you go back in time?’

There was no mistaking – Fusagi was waiting for the woman in the dress to go to the toilet. This revelation was a huge blow for Fumiko. Disappointment spread across her face and she collapsed onto the table again. The devastating conversation continued.

‘Something you want to fix?’

‘Ah, well.’ Fusagi thought for a moment. ‘That’s my secret,’ he said. He gave a self-satisfied, childish grin.

‘Your secret?’

‘Yeah.’

Even though Fusagi had said it was a secret, Kohtake smiled as if something was pleasing. Then she looked over to the woman in the dress.

‘But it seems like she probably won’t be going to the toilet today, does it?’

Fumiko hadn’t been expecting to hear that. She reacted automatically, lifting her head from the table. Her movement so swift it was almost audible. Is it possible that the woman might not even go to the toilet? Kazu said that she goes once a day. But as that woman said, perhaps the woman in the dress has already made today’s trip… No, that can’t be the case. I really hope that’s not the case.

Praying that was not the case, Fumiko waited in trepidation for what Fusagi would say next.

‘Perhaps that’s right,’ he said, readily conceding this point.

No way! Fumiko’s mouth opened as if to let out a shriek, but she was dumbfounded by the shock. Why isn’t the woman in the dress going to go to the toilet? What does the woman called Kohtake know? She was desperate for answers.

Yet she sensed that she shouldn’t interrupt the conversation. She had always believed that reading the situation was important, and right now, Kohtake’s entire body language was saying, Stay out of it! Exactly what she was meant to stay out of was not clear to her. But there was definitely something happening there – and outsiders weren’t welcome.

‘So… how about we leave?’ Kohtake said in a gentle, coaxing way. ‘Huh?’

Her big chance was back. Setting aside the question of whether the woman in the dress had already gone to the toilet, if Fusagi left, at least she could be rid of her rival.

When Kohtake had suggested that the woman in the dress probably wouldn’t be moving today, Fusagi had simply agreed, Perhaps that’s right. He said perhaps. It is equally plausible that he could have meant, At any rate, I’m waiting to see. If it was her, Fumiko would definitely wait. She concentrated all of her mental reserves while she waited for his reply, trying not to appear too eager. It was as if her entire body had become her ears.

He glanced over at the woman in the dress, then paused, deep in thought. ‘Sure, OK,’ he replied.

As it was such a clear and simple reply, Fumiko’s heart didn’t skip a beat. But even so, her excitement soared and she felt her heart beating fast.

‘Right then. We’ll leave when you finish your cup,’ said Kohtake, looking at the half-empty coffee cup.

Fusagi now seemed to be only thinking about leaving. ‘No, it’s OK. It’s gone cold anyhow,’ he said as he clumsily packed away his magazine, notebook, and pencil and got up from his seat.

Putting on his jacket with fleecy sleeves – a type often worn by construction workers – he made his way to the till. With impeccable timing, Kazu came back out of the kitchen. Fusagi passed her the coffee bill.

‘What do I owe?’ he asked.

Kazu entered the amount using the clunky keys of the ancient cash register. Meanwhile, Fusagi was checking his second bag, his shirt pocket, his back pocket, and every other place he could think…

‘That’s odd, my wallet…’ he muttered.

It seemed he had come to the cafe without his wallet. After looking in the same places again and again, he still couldn’t find it. He looked visibly upset, close to tears, even.

Then Kohtake unexpectedly produced a wallet, and held it in front of him.

‘Here.’

It was a well-worn men’s leather wallet – folded in half, bulging with what appeared to be a wad of receipts. He paused for moment, staring at the wallet presented before him. He seemed genuinely in a daze. Finally, he took the wallet offered to him without a word.

‘How much?’ he asked while furrowing into the coin purse as if it was a familiar habit.

Kohtake said nothing. She simply stood behind Fusagi, watching over him as he went about paying. ‘Three hundred and eighty yen.’

Fusagi pulled out one coin and handed it to Kazu. ‘OK, receiving five hundred yen…’

Kazu took the money, entered it into the cash register. Cha-ching…

She pulled the change from the drawer.

‘That’s one hundred and twenty yen change.’ Kazu carefully placed the change and receipt in Fusagi’s hand.

‘Thank you for the coffee,’ he said, putting the change carefully in his wallet. He stowed the wallet in his bag, having seemingly forgotten that Kohtake was there, and he quickly headed for the door.

Kohtake seemed not in the least bothered by his attitude. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and followed on after him.

‘They were rather odd,’ Fumiko muttered.

Kazu cleared the table where Fusagi had sat and disappeared once more into the kitchen.

The sudden appearance of a rival had upset Fumiko, but now that only she and the woman in the dress remained, she felt sure that victory would be hers.

Right, the competition’s gone. Now I just need to wait for her to vacate the seat, she thought. Yet the cafe had no windows and the three wall clocks each showed different times. Without customers coming and going, her sense of time was becoming frozen.

Starting to doze off a little, she reeled off the rules for returning to the past.

The first rule – the only people one may meet while back in the past are those who have visited the cafe. Fumiko’s parting conversation with Goro just happened to have taken place in this cafe.

The second rule – no matter how hard one tries while back in the past, one cannot change the present. In other words, even if Fumiko returned to that day one week earlier and pleaded for Goro not to go, the fact that he had left for America would not change. She didn’t understand why it should be so, and she could feel herself getting upset again thinking about it. But, resigned, she accepted it, given it was the rule.

The third rule – in order to return to the past, you have to sit in that seat and that seat alone. This was the seat occupied by the woman in the dress. If you try to sit there by force, you get cursed.

The fourth rule – while back in the past, you must stay in the seat and never move from it. In other words, for some reason or other, you couldn’t go to the toilet while back in the past.

The fifth rule – there is a time limit. Now that she thought about it, Fumiko still hadn’t been told the details of this one. She had no idea how long or short this time was. Fumiko thought about these rules over and over. Her thoughts went back and forth. She went from thinking that going back in time was going to be rather pointless to thinking that she may as well take charge of that conversation and say everything she wanted to – after all, it couldn’t hurt, could it, if it was not going to change the present? Fumiko went over each rule again and again until finally, slumped on the table, she drifted off to sleep.

The first time Fumiko learned of Goro’s dream future was when she dragged him out on their third date. Goro was a gaming geek. He loved those MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), which he played on a PC. His uncle was one of the developers of an MMORPG called Arm of Magic – a game that was popular around the world. Ever since he was a boy, Goro had looked up to his uncle. It was Goro’s dream to join the game company his uncle ran: TIP-G. To qualify for the selection exam for TIP-G, it was mandatory to have two things: (1) at least five years’ experience working as a systems engineer in the medical industry, and (2) a new unreleased game program that you had personally developed. Human lives depend on the reliability of systems in the medical industry and bugs are not tolerated. In the online gaming industry, on the other hand, people put up with bugs, as it’s possible to apply updates even after the release.

TIP-G was different. It only recruited candidates with experience in the medical industry to ensure that only the best programmers were hired. When Goro was telling Fumiko about this, she thought it was a wonderful dream. But what she didn’t know was that TIP-G had its headquarters in America.

On their seventh date, Fumiko was waiting for Goro to arrive at their meeting point when a couple of men started talking to her. They were chatting her up. They were good-looking, but she was not interested. Men were always trying to pick her up and so she had developed a technique for dealing with this. Before she could put it to use, Goro arrived and stood there, looking uncomfortable. Fumiko rushed up to him, but the two men reacted, sneered at Goro, and asked her why she was with that dweeb. She had no choice but to begin her spiel.

Goro lowered his head and didn’t say anything. But she faced the two men and said (in English), ‘You guys don’t know his appeal,’ (in Russian) ‘He’s brave enough to take on difficult tasks at work,’ (in French) ‘He has the mental discipline not to give up,’ (in Greek) ‘He has the skill to render the impossible possible,’ (in Italian) ‘I also know he has put in extraordinary effort to be able to gain this ability,’ (and in Spanish) ‘His appeal is far greater than any other man I know.’ Then in Japanese, she said, ‘If you understood what I just said, I wouldn’t mind hanging out with you.’

Visibly stunned, the two men at first stood motionless. Then they looked at each other, and moved on awkwardly.

Fumiko smiled broadly at Goro. ‘Naturally, I suppose you understood everything I said,’ she said, this time in Portuguese.

Showing his embarrassment, Goro gave a small nod.

On the tenth date, Goro confessed that he had never been in a relationship with a woman before.

‘Oh, so I’m the first woman who you’ve gone out with,’ Fumiko said happily. It was the first time she had confirmed that they were actually an item, and Goro’s eyes widened at the news.

You could say that night marked the start of their relationship.

Fumiko had been asleep for a while now. Suddenly, the woman in the dress slammed shut the book she was reading and sighed. After pulling out a white handkerchief from her handbag, she slowly stood up, and began walking towards the toilet.

Still asleep, Fumiko hadn’t noticed that she had left. Kazu appeared from the back room. She was still wearing her uniform: a white shirt, black bow tie, waistcoat, black trousers, and an apron. While she was clearing the table, she called out to Fumiko.

‘Madam. Madam.’

‘What? Yes?’ Fumiko sat bolt upright in surprise. She blinked her eyes and looked around the cafe until finally she spotted the change.

The woman in the dress was gone. ‘Oh!’

‘The seat is free now. Do you wish to sit there?’

‘Of course I do!’ Fumiko said.

She got up in a hurry and walked over to the seat that promised to transport her to the past. It looked like a normal chair, nothing out of the ordinary about it. As she stood there, staring at it with intense desire, her heartbeat quickened. Finally, after getting over all the rules and the curse, she had her ticket to the past.

‘OK, now take me back in time by one week.’

Fumiko took a deep breath. She calmed her racing heart and carefully squeezed into the gap between the chair and the table. She had it in her mind that she would travel back to a week ago as soon as her bottom landed on the seat, so her nervousness and excitement were reaching peak levels. She sat down so forcefully, she almost bounced back up again.

‘OK. Go back one week!’ she exclaimed.

Her heart swelled in anticipation. She looked around the cafe. As there were no windows, there was no way of telling night from day. The three old wall clocks with their hands pointing in different directions didn’t tell her the time. But something must have changed. She looked desperately around the cafe, searching for a sign that she had gone back. But she couldn’t spot a single difference. If she had returned to a week earlier, Goro would be there – but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen…

‘I haven’t gone back, have I?’ she muttered. Don’t tell me I’ve been a fool believing this nonsense about returning to the past.

Just as she was showing signs of falling apart, Kazu appeared next to her carrying a silver tray, upon which was a silver kettle and a white coffee cup.

‘I haven’t gone back yet,’ Fumiko blurted out.

Kazu’s expression was deadpan as always. ‘There is one more rule,’ she said coolly.

Damn! There was another one. It would take more than simply sitting in the chair.

Fumiko was beginning to get fed up. ‘There are still more rules?’ she said, yet at the same time, she felt relieved. It meant that going back to the past was still on the cards.

Kazu continued her explanation without showing the slightest interest in how Fumiko was feeling. ‘In a moment, I am going to pour you a cup of coffee,’ she said as she set a cup in front of Fumiko.

‘Coffee? Why coffee?’

‘Your time in the past will begin from the time the coffee is poured…’ Kazu said, ignoring the question from Fumiko, who was nevertheless reassured by the news it would be happening soon. ‘And you must return before the coffee goes cold.’

Fumiko’s confidence vanished in a flash. ‘What? That soon?’

‘The last and the most important rule…’

The talking never ends. Fumiko was itching to go. ‘Too many rules…’ she muttered as she gripped the coffee cup placed before her. The vessel was quite unremarkable: just a cup which had not yet had coffee poured into it. But she thought it felt noticeably cooler than the usual porcelain.

‘Are you listening?’ Kazu continued. ‘When you return to the past, you must drink the entire cup before the coffee goes cold.’

‘Uh. I don’t actually like coffee that much.’

Kazu opened her eyes wider and brought her face an inch or so from the tip of Fumiko’s nose.

‘This is the one rule you have to absolutely obey,’ she said in a low voice.

‘Really?’

‘If you don’t, something terrible will happen to you…’

‘Wh-what?’

Fumiko felt uneasy. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been expecting something like this. Travelling in time meant violating the laws of nature – which obviously entails risk. But she couldn’t believe the timing of Kazu’s announcement. A sinkhole had just opened up on the final strait to the finish line. Not that she was going to get cold feet – not after she had come this far. She looked apprehensively into Kazu’s eyes.

‘What? What will happen?’

‘If you don’t drink all the coffee before it gets cold…’

‘… If I don’t drink the coffee?’

‘It will be your turn to be the ghost sitting in this seat.’

A bolt of lightning went off inside Fumiko’s head. ‘Seriously?’

‘The woman who was sitting there just now…’

‘Broke that rule?’

‘Yes. She had gone to meet her dead husband. She must have lost track of the time. When she finally noticed, the coffee had gone cold.’

‘… and she became a ghost?’

‘Yes.’

This is riskier than I imagined, Fumiko thought. There were lots of annoying rules. To have met a ghost and to have been cursed was extraordinary. But now the stakes were even higher.

OK, I can return to the past. Yet, I only have until just before my coffee goes cold. I have no idea how long it takes for a hot coffee to go cold – it’s not going to be that long, though. At least it will be long enough to drink my coffee, even if it tastes awful. So, I don’t have to worry about that. But say I don’t drink it, and I turn into a ghost – that’s pretty worrying. Now let’s assume I am not going to change the present by going back to the past, no matter how much I try – there’s no risk there… There are probably no pluses, but there are no minuses either.

Turning into a ghost, on the other hand, is a definite minus.

Fumiko felt herself wavering. She was assailed by countless worries – the most immediate of which was that the coffee that Kazu poured would be revolting. She felt she should be able to handle the taste of coffee. But what if it is really peppery? What if it is wasabi-flavoured coffee? How could I possibly drink an entire cup of that?

Realizing her thoughts were becoming paranoid, she shook her head to try to dispel the wave of anxiety that had come over her.

‘Fine. I just have to drink the coffee before it goes cold, right?’

‘Yes.’

Her mind was made up. Or, more accurately, a stubborn resolve had taken root.

Kazu just stood there impassively. Fumiko could imagine that if she had instead told her, Sorry, I can’t go through with this, her reaction would have been the same. She briefly closed her eyes, placed her clenched fists on her lap, and drew in a deep breath through her nostrils as if trying to centre herself.

‘I’m ready,’ she announced. She looked Kazu in the eye. ‘Please pour the coffee.’

Giving a small nod, Kazu picked up the silver kettle from the tray with her right hand. She looked at Fumiko demurely. ‘Just remember. Drink the coffee before it goes cold,’ she whispered.

Kazu began to pour the coffee into the cup. She gave off an air of nonchalance, but her fluid and graceful movements made Fumiko feel like she was observing an ancient ceremony.

Just as Fumiko noticed the shimmering steam rising from the coffee that filled the cup, everything around the table also began to curl up and become indistinguishable from the swirling vapour. She began to feel fear and closed her eyes. The sensation that she was shimmering and becoming distorted, like the rising steam, became even more powerful. She clenched her fists tighter. If this continues, I won’t find myself in the present or past; I’ll simply vanish in a wisp of smoke. As this anxiety engulfed her, she brought to mind the first time she met Goro.

Fumiko first met Goro two years ago, in the spring. She was twenty-six, three years older than him, and stationed at a client company. Goro had been posted to the same place, but worked for another company. Fumiko was the project director and in charge of all visiting employees.

Fumiko never held back if she had something critical to say, even if it was to a superior. She had even gone as far as to get into arguments with senior colleagues. But no one ever spoke critically of her. She was always honest and direct, and her willingness to spare no effort in her work was well admired.

Although Goro was three years her junior, he gave the impression of someone in their thirties. To be blunt, he looked much older than he was. At first Fumiko had felt junior to him and spoke to him in a polite manner accordingly. Furthermore, even though Goro was the youngest in the team, he was the most competent. He was a highly skilled engineer who went about his work silently, and Fumiko saw she could depend on him.

The project Fumiko was leading was almost finished. But just before the delivery date, a serious bug was discovered. There was an error or flaw in the program, and when programming for medical systems, even seemingly trivial bugs are serious. Delivery of the system in this state was impossible. But finding the cause of a bug is like distilling and removing a drop of ink that has fallen in a twenty-five-metre swimming pool. Not only were they facing a daunting and enormous task, they didn’t have enough time to do it.

As she was the project director, the responsibility to fulfil the conditions of delivery fell on her shoulders. Delivery was due in one week. As the general consensus was that it would take at least a month to fix the bug, everyone was resigned to missing the deadline. Fumiko thought she would have to tender her resignation. Amid this turmoil, Goro disappeared from the project worksite without telling anyone, and no one could get hold of him. One snide comment led to another and soon everyone suspected that the bug was his fault. People speculated that he must be feeling so ashamed that he couldn’t show his face.

Of course, there was nothing concrete to suggest that it had been his mistake. It was simply that if the project was going to be liable for a big loss, it was convenient for it to be someone’s fault. As he was the one who was missing, he became the scapegoat, and naturally Fumiko was among those who suspected him. But on the fourth day of no contact, he suddenly appeared with the news that he had found the bug.

He hadn’t shaved, and he didn’t smell very nice, but no one even considered giving him a hard time for that. Judging by his exhausted face, he probably hadn’t even slept. While every other member of the team, including Fumiko, had decided it was too difficult and simply given up, Goro had succeeded in solving the problem. It was nothing less than a miracle. By taking leave without permission and not contacting anyone about it, he had violated basic rules that applied to any company employee. Yet he had demonstrated a commitment to his work that was greater than anyone else’s, and he had succeeded as a programmer where no one else could.

After Fumiko expressed her heartfelt gratitude and apologized for thinking even for an instant that it was his mistake, Goro simply smiled as she bowed her head.

‘All right then, perhaps you could buy me a coffee?’ he said.

That was the moment Fumiko fell in love.

After successfully delivering the system, their new postings were at different companies, and she hardly saw him. But she believed in getting things done. Whenever she could spare the time, she would take him to different places, each time on the pretext of buying him a coffee.

Goro’s approach to work was obsessive. When he started working towards a goal, he wouldn’t see anything else. Fumiko first learned that TIP-G had its headquarters in America when she visited his home. He talked so enthusiastically about working for TIP-G, and it made her worry. When his dream comes true, which will he choose: his dream or me? I mustn’t think like that, there’s no comparison. But gosh…

Then, little by little, it became clearer to her how big a loss it would be. She could no longer bring herself to try to ascertain how he felt about her. Time passed, and that spring, he finally got an offer to work at TIP-G. His dream had come true.

Fumiko’s anxiety was justified. Goro had chosen to go to America. He had chosen his dream. She had learned this a week ago, at this cafe. Now she opened her eyes feeling disorientated, as if waking from a dream.

The sensation that she was a spirit, shimmering and swirling like steam, now left her, and she began to regain awareness of her limbs. In a panic, she felt her body and face, to make sure it was herself who had appeared. When she came to her senses, a man was there before her, watching her strange behaviour, puzzled.

It was Goro, unless she was mistaken. Goro, who was meant to be in America, was there before her eyes. She really had returned to the past. She understood the puzzlement on his face. There was no doubt that she had returned to a week ago. The inside of the cafe was just how she remembered it.

The man called Fusagi had a magazine spread out on the table closest to the door. Hirai was sitting at the counter, and Kazu was there. And opposite her was Goro, at the same table where they had been. But just one thing was wrong – the seat in which Fumiko sat.

A week ago, she had been sitting facing Goro. Now, however, she was in the seat of the woman in the dress. She was still facing Goro, but they were now one table apart. He’s so far away. His puzzled look was completely justified.

But unnatural or not, she couldn’t leave her seat. That was one of the rules. But what if he asks why I am sitting here? What should I say? Fumiko gulped at the thought.

‘Oh gosh, is that the time? Sorry, I have to go.’

Goro may have looked perplexed, but despite their now unnatural seating positions, he had said the exact words she had heard a week ago. This must be an unspoken rule when travelling back to the past.

‘Ah, that’s OK. That’s OK. You don’t have any more time, do you? I don’t have much time either.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry.’

They weren’t on the same page and the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. Although she knew the moment she had returned to, Fumiko was still confused – it was, after all, the first time she had returned to the past.

To give herself time to settle, she took a sip of the coffee while looking up from under her brows to observe Goro’s expression.

Oh no! The coffee is already lukewarm! It will be cold in no time!

Fumiko was dismayed. At this temperature, she could already have gulped it down. This was an unexpected setback. She scowled at Kazu. She hated the way Kazu permanently wore such a deadpan expression. But that was not all…

‘Ugh… So bitter.’

The taste was even bitterer than she had anticipated. It was the bitterest coffee she had ever drunk. Goro looked confused at hearing Fumiko’s strange utterance.

Rubbing above his right eyebrow, Goro looked at his watch. He was worried about the time. Fumiko understood that. She was in a hurry too.

‘Um… I have something important to say,’ she said hurriedly.

Fumiko shovelled sugar into her cup from the sugar pot placed in front of her. Then, after adding a fair amount of milk, she clinked and clanged her cup with her spoon with her vigorous stirring.

‘What?’ Goro frowned.

Fumiko wasn’t sure if the frown was because she was adding too much sugar, or because he didn’t want to talk about anything important just then.

‘What I mean is… I want to talk about this properly.’

Goro looked at his watch.

‘Hang on a sec…’ Fumiko took a sip of the coffee that she had sweetened. She nodded in approval. She hadn’t drunk coffee until she met Goro. It had been the pretext of buying him a coffee that led to their dates. The curious sight of Fumiko, who hated coffee, frantically adding a tremendous amount of sugar and milk earned her a wry smile from Goro.

‘Hey, this is a serious situation, and you’re just smirking at me drinking coffee.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘You blatantly are! You can’t deny it, I can tell by looking at your face.’

Fumiko regretted interrupting the flow of the conversation. She had gone to the effort of returning to the past, and now it was going the same way as a week earlier. She was again chasing him away with her childish talk.

Goro got up from his seat, looking agitated. He called to Kazu behind the counter.

‘Excuse me… How much, please?’ He reached for the bill.

Fumiko knew that if she didn’t do something, Goro would pay and then leave. ‘Wait!’

‘It’s fine, let’s leave it at that.’

‘This isn’t what I came to say.’

‘What?’

(Don’t go.)

‘Why didn’t you talk about it with me?’

(I don’t want you to go.)

‘Well, that’s…’

‘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 for ever.)

‘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 makes 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.’

When the cup was empty, the dizziness started again. She was once more swallowed up by a wavering and shimmering world.

She began pondering. (What did I come back for, exactly?)

‘I never thought that I was the right man for you.’

She didn’t know why Goro would be saying this.

‘When you invited me for coffee,’ he continued, ‘I always said to myself that I mustn’t fall for you…’

‘What?’

‘Because I have this…’ He ran his fingers through his fringe, which had been combed down to cover the right side of his forehead. He revealed the large burn scar that spread from his right eyebrow to his right ear. ‘Before I met you, I always thought women found me repulsive, and I couldn’t even talk to them.’

‘I…’

‘Even after we had started dating.’

‘It never even bothered me!’ shouted Fumiko, but she had become one with the vapour and her words didn’t reach him.

‘I thought that it was only a matter of time before you started liking other, better-looking guys.’

(Never… How can you think that!)

‘I always thought that…’

(Never!)

It was a shock for Fumiko to hear him confess this for the first time. But now that he mentioned it, it seemed to make sense. The more she loved him, and the more she thought about marriage, the more she could sense some kind of invisible barrier.

When she asked if he loved her, he would nod, but he never said the words I love you. When they walked down the street together, Goro would look down sometimes, almost apologetically, and stroke his right eyebrow. Goro had also noticed that men walking down the street were always gawking at her.

(Surely he hadn’t been hung up on that.)

Yet, as she thought that, Fumiko regretted her own thoughts. While she saw it as his little hang-up, for him it was a painful, long-standing complex.

(I had no idea he felt that way.)

Fumiko’s awareness was fading. Her body was engulfed in a wavering, dizzy sensation. Goro had picked up the bill and was making his way to the cash register with his bag in his hand.

(Nothing about the present is going to change. It’s right that it is not going to change. He made the right choice. Achieving his dream is worth much more to him than I am. I guess I have to give up on Goro. I’ll let him go and wish him success with all my heart.)

Fumiko was slowly closing her bloodshot eyes when—

‘Three years,’ Goro said with his back to her. ‘Please wait three years. Then I’ll return, I promise.’

It was a faint voice, but the cafe was small. Although now only vapour, Fumiko could clearly hear Goro’s voice.

‘When I return…’ Goro touched his right eyebrow out of habit and, with his back to Fumiko, said something else that was too muffled to hear.

‘Huh? What?’

At that moment, Fumiko’s awareness of that place became shimmering steam. Just as she was slipping away, Fumiko saw Goro’s face as he glanced back before leaving the cafe. She saw his face for only a split second but he was smiling wonderfully, just like the time when he had said, ‘Perhaps you could buy me a coffee?’

When she came to, Fumiko was sitting in the seat, alone in the cafe. She felt as if she had just had a dream, but the coffee cup in front of her was empty. Her mouth still had a sweet taste in it.

Just then, the woman in the dress returned from the toilet. When she caught Fumiko sitting in her chair, she swooped silently up to her.

‘Move,’ she said in an eerily powerful low voice.

Fumiko started. ‘I… I’m sorry,’ she said, standing up from the chair.

The dreamlike sensation had still not dissipated. Had she really returned to the past?

Going back in time didn’t change the present, so it was only normal that nothing felt different. The aroma of coffee drifted from the kitchen. Fumiko turned to look. Kazu had appeared carrying a fresh cup of coffee placed on the tray.

Kazu walked past her as if nothing had happened. When she got to the woman in the dress’s table, she cleared Fumiko’s used cup and placed the fresh cup of coffee in front of the woman in the dress. The woman gave a small nod of acknowledgement and began to read her book.

Returning to the counter, Kazu asked casually, ‘How was it?’

On hearing these words, Fumiko finally felt sure that she had travelled in time. She had returned to that day – one week ago. But if she had…

‘So I’m just thinking…’

‘Yes?’

‘It doesn’t change the present, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But what about the things that happen later?’

‘I’m not sure what you’re saying.’

‘From now on…’ Fumiko chose her words. ‘From now on – what about the future?’

Kazu looked straight at Fumiko. ‘Well, as the future hasn’t happened yet, I guess that’s up to you…’ she said, revealing a smile for the first time.

Fumiko’s eyes lit up.

Kazu stood in front of the cash register. ‘Coffee service, plus late-night surcharge, that’s four hundred and twenty yen, please,’ she said quietly.

Fumiko gave a big nod and went towards the cash register. She felt light-footed. After paying 420 yen, Fumiko looked Kazu in the eye.

‘Thank you,’ she said and bowed her head low.

Then, after looking around the entire cafe, she once again bowed, not to anyone in particular, more to the cafe itself. Then she walked out of the cafe without a care.

Kazu started entering the money into the cash register, with her deadpan expression, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The woman in the dress gave a slight smile as she quietly closed the book, a novel titled The Lovers.