Far from growing frantic, she stayed completely cool as if the customer’s absence was no big deal. She started clearing away the woman in the dress’s used cup, behaving as if Yukio had never existed. She didn’t seem to have the slightest interest in why he had gone out or whether he was coming back. She wiped the table with a cloth and then disappeared back into the kitchen to wash the cup. The doorbell rang.

clang-dong

Yukio reentered the room empty-handed, his mobile phone now stowed in his pocket. He sat down at the counter, which meant his back was to the chair. Lifting the glass in front of him, he sipped his water and exhaled a deep sigh, unaware the woman in the dress was gone.

Kazu appeared from the kitchen carrying a silver kettle and a bright white coffee cup upon a tray. Noticing Kazu, Yukio said, “I just contacted my sister,” explaining why he had left his seat. His voice no longer sounded as defensive as it had when he had responded to Kazu’s question about why he didn’t attend the funeral.

“Oh, really?” Kazu replied quietly.

Yukio looked up at Kazu standing there and gulped. She seemed to be haloed by dim pale blue flames, and he sensed an unworldly and mysterious atmosphere hanging in the room.

“The chair’s vacant,” began Kazu.

He finally noticed that the woman in the dress was no longer there and gasped, “Ah!”

Walking up to the now unoccupied chair, Kazu asked him, “Will you be sitting down?”

Yukio stared vacantly for a moment, as if still shocked that he had not noticed the woman’s absence. But conscious of Kazu’s patient gaze, with some effort he replied, “Yeah, I will.”

He walked over, silently closed his eyes, and after taking a deep breath, he slid between the table and the chair.

Kazu placed the pure white cup in front of him.

“I shall now pour the coffee,” she said softly. Her calm voice had a somber gravitas.

“The time you can spend in the past will begin from the time the cup is filled, and it must end before the coffee gets cold...”

Although she had explained this rule to him earlier, Yukio didn’t immediately respond. After closing his eyes as if deep in thought, he replied, “Okay, I understand,” more to himself than to Kazu. His voice sounded different now, its pitch ever so subtly lower.

Kazu nodded, and she picked up from the tray a ten-centimeter-long silver implement that looked like a stirring stick and slipped it into the cup.

Yukio looked at it curiously. “What’s that?” he asked, cocking his head to one side.

“Please use this instead of a spoon,” she explained simply. Why doesn’t she just give me a spoon? he wondered. But he was conscious that listening to the explanation alone was taking up valuable time.

“Okay, got it,” he merely replied.

Having finished her explanation, Kazu asked, “Shall we begin?”