Before the Coffee Gets Cold

by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

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 sat motionless as if time itself had stopped.

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

The only people you can meet while in the past are those who have visited the cafe.

There is nothing you can do while in the past that will change the present.

that moment, Fusagi remembered that he had a wife, but he didn’t remember that Kohtake, standing before him, was his wife.

You’re a nurse, so I can only assume you have already noticed. I have an illness where I forget things. I imagine that as I keep on losing my memory, you will be able to put aside your own feelings and care for me with the detachment of a nurse, and that you can do that no matter what strange things I say or do – even if I forget who you are. So I ask you never to forget one thing. You are my wife, and if life becomes too hard for you as my wife, I want you to leave me. You don’t have to stay by me as a nurse. If I am no good as a husband, then I want you to leave me. All I ask is that you can do what you can as my wife. We are husband and wife after all. Even if I lose my memory, I want to be together as husband and wife. I cannot stand the idea of us staying together only out of sympathy.

Treat them mean, keep them keen,

the future is uncertain.

‘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.