clang-dong

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, facedown on the table. He collected the coins in his large hands and playfully jangled them.

“Hey, bro.” Kazu’s face appeared as she called out from the back room. Kazu called Nagare “bro” despite him being her cousin, not her brother.

“What?”

“Sis is calling you.”

Nagare looked around the café. “Okay, coming.” He casually placed the coins in Kazu’s hand.

“Kohtake said she’ll come right away,” Kazu said.

Nagare received the news with a nod. “Look after the café, could you?” He disappeared into the back room.

“Okay,” she said.

The only people in the café, though, were the woman reading a novel, Fumiko, still slumped over the table, and Fusagi, who was taking notes from the magazine spread open in front of him. After depositing the coins in the cash register, Kazu cleared away the coffee cup left by Hirai. One of the café’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 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 okay,” muttered Fumiko.

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 okay 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 took a couple of steps back. Her brow settled into a frown.

“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 flared 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.

“There’s one more important rule,” she began.

In response to these words, Fumiko’s eyebrows rose considerably. “What? There are more rules?”

“You can’t meet people who haven’t visited this café. 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.” As Kazu ran through each rule, Fumiko counted on her fingers 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 and nodded at Kazu, as if to emphasize her resolve.

“If that’s the case, then fine, so be it. Go on, tell me,” she said, folding her arms.

Kazu drew a short breath as if to say, I will then , and vanished into the kitchen, to put away the glass carafe she had been holding.

Left standing there alone, Fumiko took a deep breath to center herself. 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 centered on the actual act of going back. Her heart was set on experiencing this fantastical phenomenon.

She didn’t know whether time travel 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 exhaled a deep breath, Kazu returned. Fumiko’s face stiffened like a defendant 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 café,” she said again. Fumiko reacted instantly.

“Which one? Where should I sit?” She looked around the café 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?”

Nothing.

“You’re wasting your time.”

The voice came unexpectedly from behind Fumiko. It was Kazu. It took Fumiko 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 the question of 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 toward 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 toward 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, the woman had legs. The title of the book the woman was reading was one she had never heard of. Nevertheless, it was a normal book—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 café can’t really take you back. It was all just a ploy to get people to come. Take the countless number of annoying rules, for example. These are just the first hurdles to encourage customers wanting to return to the past to give up. If the customer passes those first hurdles, then this must be the next 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! 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 Fumiko 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 café dimmed to the brightness of candlelight. An unworldly wailing began to reverberate through the café.

She was paralyzed. 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 going on. 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 facedown 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 facedown, 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. Fumiko’s fear was so intense, she 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 toward 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.

“Ah...”

The curse had been lifted. Fumiko, unencumbered and panting, rose up 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 toward 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 bathroom.”

“A ghost needs to go to the bathroom?”

“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 bathroom, 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.

“Okay... I’ll wait. I’ ll wait!”

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

“Yes. Okay, I’ll wait,” Fumiko said, desperately clutching her straw. “What time do you close?”

“Regular 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.