Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Twenty-eight-year-old Fumiko thinks that her boyfriend, Goro, has invited her out to coffee to propose to her. As their first-choice café is closed, they go to one whose name sounds like a song Fumiko knew as a child. The café is in a windowless basement and has three large antique wall clocks, each showing different times.

Fumiko, who works in an IT firm in Tokyo, has model-like features and is “the epitome of the smart, career-driven woman” (4). For a while, Fumiko’s work took precedence over her love life, but for the past few years, she has been dating Goro, a systems engineer three years her junior who is employed by a medical company. To her shock, Goro breaks up with her, announcing that he is going to work in America.

A week later, Fumiko is telling her story to a waitress, Kazu, and another café regular, Hirai, who has curlers in her hair. Kazu, shy and discreet, is a student at Tokyo University of the Arts. Fumiko, who has heard rumors that it’s possible to time travel at the café, asks Hirai and Kazu to “transport [her] back to that day” (9). She feels she was too proud in refraining from begging Goro not to go. She thinks that going back in time and explaining her feelings would make all the difference in his decision to go to America.

The next day, Fumiko turns up at the café and demands that Kazu send her back in time. Kazu warns her that when she goes back, no matter her effort, the present will remain the same. She emphasizes that Fumiko’s time travel will do nothing to change the fact of Goro’s departure for America. Fumiko is frustrated and recalls a magazine article she has read about the café, in which the author had been unable to find anyone who had actually visited the past. She considers that the inability to change the present makes the whole time-traveling adventure pointless.

Kazu relates two more rules. She states that there is only one seat in the café that makes time travel possible, and that there is a time limit on how long one can stay in the past. Fumiko is so drained that she slumps over the table.

Meanwhile, Kazu warmly greets a woman named Kei Tokita. Kei, who has a weak heart but a cheerful disposition, is the wife of Kazu’s cousin Nagare, the café owner. Nagare greets a man named Fusagi, a café regular reading a travel magazine. Nagare tells Hirai that Kei’s test results meant she did not need to be hospitalized. When Nagare inquires after Hirai’s sister and asks why Hirai does not go home and help her, Hirai briskly answers that she would not be any help.

Fumiko revives from her slump. She decides that it is still worth traveling to the past even if nothing changes, her “entire objective” shifting to the act of going back (22). She asks Kazu which seat will take her to the past, and Kazu points to one filled by a woman in a white dress. Fumiko marches over to the pallid woman and asks to swap seats. The woman doesn’t react, and Kazu tells Fumiko that the woman is a ghost. Fumiko grows frustrated and tries to forcibly remove the woman from her seat. The woman revives, and an “unworldly wailing” permeates the café (27). Fumiko falls to the floor, utterly confused. Kazu informs her that the ghost has cursed her. Fumiko asks for Kazu’s help, and Kazu casually offers the ghost woman coffee. This works to lift the curse.

Kazu tells Fumiko that she must wait until the ghost woman goes to the bathroom to take her seat. The ghost woman only goes once a day. Fumiko says that she will wait as long as it takes.

Kazu greets a nurse in her forties named Kohtake. Kohtake addresses Fusagi, the man reading the travel magazine. He mutters her name but looks at her with a vacant stare. Fusagi tells her that he is waiting for the ghost woman to leave her seat. Fumiko, who overhears, is outraged and devastated that she will have competition. She then acknowledges that as Fusagi has been waiting longer, he gets to go in the seat first. Kohtake asks Fusagi why he wants to travel back in time and if there is something he wants to fix. He replies that it is his secret. Kohtake says that the woman in the dress is unlikely to leave today and tries to persuade Fusagi to go with her. She seems to succeed when Fusagi goes up to pay. He seems in a daze as he heads out the door and Kohtake follows him out. Fumiko is relieved that the competition has gone; however, her sense of timing is completely lost with the lack of functioning clocks and windows. She drifts off to sleep, thinking about the rules.

While Fumiko is asleep, the ghost woman gets up and goes to the toilet. Kazu wakes Fumiko, who dashes over to the chair and demands to be taken back in time by a week. Kazu returns from the kitchen carrying coffee and explains that Fumiko’s time in the past will begin when the coffee is poured and that she must return before it goes cold. While she is in the past, she must also drink the entire cup before the coffee goes cold. If she does not, it will be her turn to become the ghost in this seat. Kazu explains that the woman in the dress broke her rule when she went to meet her dead husband. She lost track of time, and when the coffee went cold, she became the ghost.

Kazu performs the ritual pouring, and Fumiko notices the atmosphere becoming like vapor. She feels anxious and disoriented, the way she did when she first met Goro while stationed at a client company. When a bug appeared in the system, the others gossiped that it was Goro’s fault, as he had disappeared from the project worksite. Goro reappeared four days later, having found the bug. He suggested going for a coffee, and Fumiko fell in love. Goro was obsessive about work, and when Fumiko discovered that his dream company TIP-G’s headquarters was in America, she worried that he would choose his career over her.

Fumiko gains awareness of her surroundings and finds that she really has returned to the past. Everything is as it was a week ago, apart from the fact that she and Goro are one table apart, as Fumiko is in the time-traveling seat. The couple spend a long time unable to communicate properly. Fumiko takes a sip of coffee and realizes that it is already lukewarm. Goro keeps looking at his watch, and Fumiko sweetens her coffee. Goro, who knows Fumiko hates coffee, smiles at her. Fumiko feels that everything is already going wrong. Although she wants to tell him not to go and that she loved him and thought they would be together forever, she finds herself saying, “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” (51). She is still too proud to be honest and concedes that nothing she can say will stop him from going.

Fumiko gulps down the rest of her coffee and is feeling dizzy when Goro confesses that he never thought he was the right man for her. He is self-conscious about the burn scar beneath his fringe and thought “it was only a matter of time before [Fumiko] started liking other, better-looking guys” (53). Fumiko is shocked but realizes that the more that she loved him and thought about marriage, the more she could sense an “invisible barrier” between them (53). She remembers that Goro never openly said he loved her. Fumiko is saddened by the knowledge of his insecurity and is beginning to think that he would have always chosen his career over her when Goro suddenly asks her to wait three years until he returns. The place becomes shimmering steam, and Fumiko returns to the present. The ghost woman demands that she move. Fumiko is in a daze as Kazu asks about her experiences. She wonders aloud whether the new knowledge she has gained from her journey can change the future, even as it cannot change the present. Kazu, smiling for the first time, says, “[A]s the future hasn’t happened yet, I guess that’s up to you” (55). Fumiko pays and walks out of the café feeling carefree.

After, Kazu acts as though nothing unusual has happened and the ghost woman smiles and closes her book, a novel called The Lovers.