Nagare got a lot of joy from watching the customers’ delight as they ate his delicious butter. The problem was that although he used the most expensive ingredients, the butter was free for customers. He didn’t charge for condiments; he was very particular about that. These high standards of his were quite a problem.
Still holding the tray, he stood in front of the girl. His large frame must have seemed like a giant wall to the petite girl seated there.
He looked down at her. ‘Who did you come to meet?’ he asked, getting straight to the point.
The girl looked up at the giant wall standing there. She casually stared at him. He was used to his huge size causing surprise and apprehension in those who didn’t know him; it felt strange now that he didn’t have this effect.
‘What?’ he asked.
But the girl didn’t offer much of a response.
‘No one in particular,’ she just said and took another sip of coffee. She wouldn’t engage with him at all.
Tilting his head to one side, he gracefully placed the tray on the table for the girl and then returned to his place behind the counter. The girl looked uncomfortable.
‘Uh, excuse me,’ she called to Nagare.
‘What?’
‘I didn’t order this,’ the girl said awkwardly, pointing to the toast in front of her.
‘On the house,’ he said with pride.
The girl looked at all the free food with disbelief. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward with both hands on the counter.
‘You made all the effort to come from the future. I can’t have a girl like you going back without serving you anything,’ he said, perhaps expecting at least a thank you. But the girl just kept staring at him and didn’t even smile. He felt obliged to respond.
‘Is there a problem?’ he said, a bit rattled.
‘No. Thank you, I’ll eat it.’
‘Attagirl.’
‘Well, why wouldn’t I?’
The girl expertly spread the butter on the toast and took a hungry mouthful. She kept on munching. She had a wonderful way of eating.
He was waiting for the girl’s reaction. Naturally, he thought, she would show her delight upon eating his boast-worthy butter. But she did not react as he had anticipated – she carried on eating without changing her expression. When she finished the toast, she started crunching on the salad and gobbling down the fruit yogurt.
On finishing, the girl just folded her hands in thanks for the food without having made a single comment. Nagare was crestfallen.
CLANG-DONG
It was Kazu. She handed the key ring with its wad of keys to Nagare behind the counter.
‘I’m ba—’ she said, stopping mid-word when she noticed the girl in that seat.
‘Hey,’ replied Nagare, pocketing the key ring. He didn’t say, ‘Hey, welcome back,’ like he normally would.
Kazu grabbed his wrist, and whispered: ‘Who’s she?’
‘I’ve been trying to find out,’ he replied.
Normally Kazu wouldn’t particularly pay much attention to who was sitting there. When someone appeared, she could easily tell that the person had come from the future to meet someone. It was not something she interfered in.
But never had such a young, pretty girl sat in that chair before. She couldn’t help but openly stare at her.
Her staring did not go unnoticed.
‘Hello!’ said the girl, offering a pleasant smile.
Nagare’s left eyebrow twitched in annoyance that she hadn’t offered such a smile to him.
‘Did you come to meet someone?’ said Kazu.
‘Yeah. I guess,’ the girl conceded.
Hearing this conversation, Nagare tightened his lips. He had asked the same question just moments earlier and the girl had said no. He wasn’t amused.
‘But they’re not here, are they?’ he said crossly, turning away.
So who was she planning to meet? Kazu wondered as she tapped her index finger against her chin.
‘Huh? Surely it wasn’t him?’ She pointed the chin-tapping finger towards Nagare.
Nagare pointed at himself. ‘Me?’ He folded his arms and muttered, ‘Um, er . . .’ as if he was trying to remember the circumstances surrounding the girl’s appearance.
The girl had appeared on that seat about ten minutes ago. Kei had needed to go to the gynaecology clinic so Kazu had driven her there. Normally Nagare would take Kei to her regular check-ups, but today was different.
He considered the gynaecology clinic to be a sanctuary for women only, where no man should venture. That was why he was manning the cafe alone.
(Did she choose a time when only I was working?)
His heart lifted at the thought.
(So perhaps the way she’s been until now is down to her being embarrassed . . . )
Stroking his chin, he nodded as if it all made sense. He sprang from the counter and sat down in the chair facing the girl.
The girl stared back at him blankly.
He no longer looked like the person he had been until a moment ago.
If her coldness towards me is just out of shyness, I’ll try to be more approachable, he thought and grinned broadly.
He leaned forward on his elbows in an easy-going way. ‘So, was it me that you came to visit?’ he asked the girl.
‘No way.’
‘Me? You came to meet me?’
‘No.’
‘Me?’
‘No!’
‘. . .’
The girl was adamant. Kazu heard the exchange and came to a simple conclusion.
‘Well you’re completely ruled out.’
Again, Nagare was deflated. ‘OK . . . so it’s not me,’ he said sulkily as he trudged back to the counter.
The girl seemed to find this amusing and let out a cheeky giggle.
CLANG-DONG
When the bell rang, the girl looked at the clock in the middle of the wall. This clock in the middle was the only one that was accurate. The other two were either slow or fast. She must have known that. The girl’s eyes were fixed on the entrance.
A moment later, Kei walked into the cafe.
‘Thanks, Kazu, dear,’ she said as she entered. She was wearing an aqua-coloured dress and strappy sandals, and was fanning herself with a straw hat. She had gone out with Kazu, but, judging from the plastic shopping bag she was holding, she must have popped into the convenience store nearby before coming into the cafe. Kei was, by nature, a carefree person. Always charming and never shy, she was comfortable with the most intimidating of customers; she would be friendly and outgoing, even when communicating with a foreigner who spoke no Japanese.
When Kei noticed the girl sitting in that seat, she said, ‘Hello, welcome,’ while wearing a big smile. Her smile was beaming even more than normal, and the tone of her voice was a little higher too.
The girl straightened in her chair and bowed her head a little, keeping her gaze on Kei.
Kei responded with a smile and trotted towards the back room.
‘So how was it?’ Nagare asked Kei.
Given where she and Kazu had just returned from, there could be only one thing that he wanted to know. Kei patted her still flat stomach, gave him the peace sign, and smiled.
‘Ah. Right then,’ he said.
He narrowed his eyes further and gave two small nods. When he felt joy, he found himself unable to express his happiness openly. Knowing this all too well, Kei looked on at his reaction with contentment.
With keenly observing eyes, the girl in that seat watched this exchange warmly. Kei didn’t seem to notice how the girl was watching her and began walking to the back room.
As if this was some kind of cue, the girl called out in an unexpectedly loud voice. ‘Excuse me?’
Kei stopped in her tracks and answered unthinkingly. ‘Yes?’ She turned and looked at the girl with her round, bright eyes.
The girl self-consciously averted her eyes and began fidgeting.
‘What is it?’ Kei a
sked.
The girl looked up as if she indeed wanted something; her smile was honest and sweet. The cool distance she expressed towards Nagare had vanished entirely.
‘Um. It’s just . . .’
‘Yes? What is it?’
‘I’d like to take my photo with you.’
Kei blinked, startled by the girl’s words. ‘With me?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Nagare immediately responded. ‘With her?’ he asked, pointing to Kei.
‘Yes,’ said the girl cheerily.
‘Are you saying that you came to see her?’ asked Kazu.
‘Yes.’
Kei’s eyes beamed brightly at this unknown girl’s sudden confession. Kei was never suspicious of strangers. So rather than asking the girl who she was or why she wanted the photo, she immediately said, ‘Oh! Really? Can I fix my make-up first?’
She pulled out a case from her shoulder bag and began fixing her make-up.
‘Um, there’s no time,’ the girl said urgently.
‘Oh . . . No, of course.’
Naturally, Kei knew the rules well. Her cheeks flushed as she snapped the case shut.
The girl was prevented from positioning herself alongside Kei, as you would normally do when asking for a photo, by the rule prohibiting her to move from that seat. Kei passed her convenience-store plastic bag and straw hat to Kazu and stood next to the girl.
‘Where’s your camera?’ asked Kazu.
The girl pushed something towards her across the table.
‘Huh? Is that a camera?’ asked Kei in surprise, as Kazu looked at the camera handed to her. It had the dimensions of a business card. Wafer-thin and semi-transparent, it just looked like a plastic card.
Kei was fascinated by it. She took a close look at it from all angles. ‘It’s so thin!’
‘Um, we have to hurry. Time is almost up,’ the girl said calmly to Kei.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Kei, shrugging her shoulders and standing alongside the girl again.
‘OK, I’m taking it.’ Kazu pointed the camera at the two. It didn’t seem difficult to use, she just pressed the button that appeared in the screen.
Click
‘What? Wait a bit, when are you going to take it?’ said Kei.
Kazu had taken the picture while Kei was adjusting her hair and arranging her fringe. She handed the camera back to the girl.
‘You already took it? When did you do that?’ The girl and Kazu were both very businesslike. Kei alone was full of questions and confused.
‘Thank you very much,’ said the girl and immediately drank the remainder of her coffee.
‘What . . . ? Just a minute,’ Kei said. But the girl vaporized into steam. As the steam rose towards the ceiling, the woman in the dress appeared from underneath it. It looked like a transformation trick worthy of a ninja.
As all three were used to such things happening, no one was particularly surprised. If another customer had seen it they would have been shocked. If a customer ever did see such a thing they would be told it was a parlour trick – though if the cafe staff were asked how they performed this trick, they would be unable to provide an answer.
The woman in the dress was reading her novel casually as if nothing had happened. However, when she noticed the tray, she pushed it away with her right hand, which clearly meant: Take that away!
When Kei went to clean up the tray, Nagare took it from her, tilted his head to one side, and disappeared into the kitchen.
‘I wonder who that was,’ Kei muttered. She retrieved the plastic convenience-store bag and straw hat from Kazu and retreated to the back room.
Kazu kept staring at that chair where the woman in the dress was sitting. It was clear by the look on her face that something was bothering her.
This was the first time a customer had come from the future to meet Nagare, Kei, or Kazu. There had never seemed to be a good reason why anyone would want to go back in time to see one of the cafe staff members who were always in the cafe.
Yet a girl had just come from the future to meet Kei.
Kazu didn’t interrogate or press anyone on why they had visited from the future. Even if, say, a murderer travelled back in time, she would have a good reason to leave it alone: the rule was that the present doesn’t change no matter how much one tries to rearrange things in the past. This rule could never be broken. A series of random events would always somehow unfold to prevent the present from changing. 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.
Kazu or whoever was there would call the ambulance and the police. The ambulance would leave for the cafe. This ambulance would not get caught in traffic. The ambulance would travel from the emergency centre to the cafe and carry the patient from the cafe to the hospital using the shortest distance and in the fastest time. On looking at the patient, the hospital staff might say, ‘We probably can’t save him.’ Even if that happened, then a world-leading surgeon would happen to be visiting the hospital and would operate on the patient. Even if the victim’s blood was a rare type that only one in several ten thousand possessed, there would be a stock of such blood at the hospital. The surgery staff would be excellent and the operation would be successful. The surgeon might say later that if the ambulance had been one minute later or if the bullet had been located one millimetre 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.
Because of this, Kazu didn’t mind who came from the future, for whatever reason. Everything a visitor from the future might try would be futile.
‘Could you do this for me, please,’ Nagare called from the kitchen.
Kazu turned and looked to see Nagare standing at the kitchen door holding the tray containing the coffee brewed for the woman in the dress. She took the tray and started carrying it to the table where the woman was sitting.
For a while she stared at the woman, while thoughts went around in her head. What did that girl come back for, I wonder? If it was to take a picture of Kei, why did she go to the effort of returning to the past?
CLANG-DONG
‘Hello, welcome,’ Nagare shouted. Kazu collected her thoughts and served the coffee.
(I feel like there is something important that I’m missing.)
To dispel the feeling, she gave her head a little shake.
‘Hello.’ Kohtake had entered the cafe. She was on her way home from work.
She was wearing a lime-green polo shirt and a white skirt with black pumps on her feet. She had a canvas bag hanging from her shoulder.
‘Hello, Kohtake,’ Nagare said.
On hearing her name called, she spun round on her heel as if to walk out again.
‘Ah, sorry. Mrs Fusagi,’ he corrected himself. Kohtake smiled with approval and sat at the counter.
It was now three days since Kohtake had returned to the past and received the letter that Fusagi had written but never given to her. She now insisted upon ‘Mrs Fusagi’.
She hung her bag on the back of her chair. ‘Coffee, please,’ she ordered.
‘Certainly,’ Nagare said, bowing his head and turning to the kitchen to brew the coffee.
She looked around the empty cafe, flexed her shoulders, and took a deep breath. She had planned to accompany Fusagi on his walk home if he had been at the cafe, so she was a little disappointed. Kazu, who had been watching the exchange between Nagare and Kohtake with a smile, had finished serving the woman in the dress.
‘I’m just taking my break,’ she said and disappeared into the back room. Kohtake said, ‘OK,’ and gave her a little wave.
It was early August and summer was really peaking. Kohtake, though, liked her coffee hot, even in summer. She liked the aroma of i
t when it was freshly brewed. She couldn’t enjoy iced coffee in the same way. Coffee was far more pleasurable when it was hot.
When Nagare made coffee, he usually brewed it using the siphon method, by pouring boiling water into a flask, then heating it to allow the evaporated steam to rise through a funnel and extract the coffee from the ground beans held inside the funnel. However, when he made coffee for Kohtake and some other regular customers, he brewed the coffee hand-drip style. When making hand-drip coffee, he put a paper filter in a dripper, added the ground beans, and poured boiling water over them. He thought the hand-drip style of making coffee allowed for greater flexibility as you could change the bitterness and sourness of the coffee by changing the temperature of the water, and the way you poured it. As the cafe did not play background music, it was possible to hear the soft sound of the coffee dripping, drop by drop, into the server. When Kohtake heard this dripping sound, she would smile in satisfaction.
Kei tended to use an automatic coffee maker. This machine was equipped with a single button that allowed different tastes to be accommodated. As Kei was not a master in the art of making coffee, she preferred to rely on a machine. Some of the regular customers who came to enjoy a cup of coffee did not therefore order when Nagare was not around. After all, the coffee was always the same price, whether it was brewed by Nagare or Kei. Kazu normally made coffee using the siphon method. The reason for this choice was not because of taste. She simply enjoyed watching the hot water rise up through the funnel. Besides, Kazu found the hand-drip coffee too tedious to make.
Kohtake was served with a coffee specially brewed by Nagare. With the coffee in front of her, she closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply. It was her moment of happiness. As per his insistence, the coffee had been made from mocha beans with their distinct aroma, which coffee drinkers either love or hate. Those who enjoy the aroma, like Kohtake, can’t get enough of it. In fact, you could say that the coffee picked the customers. Just as with his butter, Nagare enjoyed watching customers take pleasure in the aroma. As he watched, his eyes narrowed even further.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold Page 10
