Time travel with a lot of rules. It’s an odd twist on time travel as a whole. While other stories focus on changing the past, the butterfly effect, and not changing events like stopping yourself from being born by mistake.
Summary
I picked this up by chance as it came up on social media. The cover looked interesting and curiosity got the better of me. I picked it up that weekend and finished the whole 200-ish pages by the following weekend. Now I don’t read much as I can find it hard. But this kept my interest, so much so I took the time to finish reading it during the day rather than just reading it before bed as I’d normally do.
Before the coffee gets cold focuses on a tiny basement cafe called Funiculi Funicula in Tokyo, hidden from view down a small alleyway, with a legend that one can travel through time in the premises. In these stories, the cafe is run by a Husband and wife duo Nagare & Kei with Kazu a cousin of Nagare helping out as well. Each chapter is used as an arc for the story of the person wanting to time travel. With the cafe staff being frequent throughout their struggles. You get a real sense of a community forming in the cafe between its customers and its staff as the stories progress, with characters from past stories returning later on as normally people don’t just vanish after their arc ends.
The time travel in this book is certainly different to most western interpretations. To time travel in the cafe there are a strict set of rules. Some are required to even travel in the first place while others are to stop you from having a grim fate. These are:
- Sitting in a particular seat in the cafe, that is only free for a short window each day as a ghost occupies the seat for the rest of the time. Said ghost curses you if you try to force her away from her seat.
- You cannot move from the seat when traveling through time, leaving the seat will return you to the present.
- You can only see people who have visited the cafe or will visit the cafe, due to the limitation above.
- You cannot change the past, events that have occours cannot be changed no matter how hard you try. Fate will make them occur in an alternate way, resulting in the same outcome.
- There is a time limit, the coffee. Which must be drunk, in full, before it goes cold.
- You can only travel in time once, and once only.
So yea, lots of rules. At this point most people would just not want to travel at all. In face most would have been disheartened from going at not being able to change the past. As you can imagine that is the most temping reason to time travel the first place. To undo the mistakes you made. I certainly would make some changes if I could. But I have to live with them and I’ve come to terms with it.
This doesn’t dissuade four people from time traveling in this book.
The Lovers
The first arc is a little longer than the others in as it has to explain the premise of the cafe and the rules of traveling in time. In future arc’s it’s just mentioned as do they know the rules, which most of them do. The opening arc is about a couple who visit the cafe. The boyfriend Goro tells his lover he is going to America for work. As he wants to work on for a game company that only hires programmers from the medical industry. The news is sudden for his partner Fumiko to take. She desperately wants to go back in time to before he leaves to confess her love for him, after splitting up less than a week before due to him leaving.
She’s a bit impatient and tries to force the ghost to move. Quickly learning that is a bad idea as the ghost curses her to the floor. Until she is saved by Kazu offering coffee to the ghost, who the ghost seems to listen to. After traveling back she struggles to get through to Goro, but eventually, she understands his reasoning for leaving and he asks her to wait 3 years for him. The story is left there for now.
The Husband & Wife
The second arc goes into a topic I’ve also experienced in the past, Alzheimer’s. Some of my late grandparents suffered from it. Certainly, one of the worst diseases out there given how it slowly makes you forget everything. Seeing it here made sense and it is a plot that fits the premise of time travel well.
In this story the husband, we don’t learn his name, he is instead referred as Mr Fusagi. He is the one suffering from the disease while his wife Ms Kohtake (Mrs Furagi) who he has forgotten also frequents the cafe to see him. He has a letter in a brown envelope that he wants to return to the past to give to his wife. Not knowing that Kahtake is his wife. We actually learn about his plans in the first arc, but it is more important in this arc. He actually never manages to be in the cafe at the right time to travel, instead his wife does after some encouragement from Kei & Kazu about the letter possibly being a final love letter.
Kohtake herself being a nurse was able to spot the early signs and was as prepared. Well as best as she could be. The day he forgot her completely is the day she decides to travel back. The interaction in the past in interesting here. Given Mr Fusagi knows about the whole time travel thing, he can immediately tell she came from the future and is able to guess why. After some back and forth she is given the letter which turns out to be a request to leave him if he forgets her for her sake. Once getting back from the past, she decided to not give up on him and instead asks everyone to call her Mrs Fusagi instead of her maiden name of Kohtake.
The sisters
The third arc covers loss. The sisters being Kumi & Yaeko Hirai. Though Yaeko only ever goes by her surname Hirai. Hirai being the older of the sisters moved away from home to get away from having to run the family inn. Something she really wanted to avoid to have freedom in her life. Because she did this, her parents disowned her, cutting all ties, Though Kumi kept in touch and took up the roll running the inn. She has been coming to Tokyo to the cafe in order to try and persuade her sister to come back home. All being forgiven if she did.
We learn that Hirai found this sweet at first, but eventually, it became more of a nuisance as her sister would visit frequently with the same goal in mind. Having decided to hide from her sister instead of talking to her. Nonetheless Kumi would still visit. This is until one day, when returning from Tokyo to the family inn she is hit in a head-on collision with a truck. Not surviving the accident. When Hirai learns of this from a staff member at the inn, as her parents wanted nothing to do with her. She dropped everything to go back home for the funeral.
It’s post funeral that she decides to see her sister again through time travel. Previously the ghost in the seat has moved to the toilet, but this time it could be a while. Hirai was however emotional and impatient. Trying to force the ghost out of the seat, getting herself cursed to the floor until Kazu saves her. Kazu then tries something, stating it may not work. She proceeds to over consecutive cups of coffee to the ghost, quite a funny moment. After 8 cups the ghost goes to the toilet out of desperation. We learn during this time the ghost cannot say no to the coffee.
Given the state Hiari is in, she if given her cup of coffee with an alarm in it. This is only given if you are visiting the deceased as it can be hard to leave willingly after being reunited. She’s warned to drink the coffee before it gets cold and if the alarm does go off, to drink it urgently as time will be short. In the past Hiari connects with Kumi and agrees to come back and run the inn with her. Later learning that it was her dream to run the family inn together with Hiari, never feeling resentment for her leaving. Hiari struggles to return from the past given how emotional the moment is for her, however Kei in the past hearing the alarm and knowing exactly what is going on, helps her before it is too late.
Once back in the present, Hiari thanks the staff and decides to honor her last words to Kumi in the past and return to the family inn. Running it in her memory. This arc also the first arc with a little sneak peek of what is to come. The chapter starts with a visitor from the past coming to see Kei. Only wanting a photo with her before leaving before the coffee gets cold.
Mother and child
The final arc is certainly one of the harder ones to read. We learn in this arc that Kei is struggling with her pregnancy with a weak heart. Something she has suffered from since birth. While in hospital she met Nagare who was also in the hospital, recovering from a bad scrap in an accident. Kei falls for him, they meet and hit it off. What sets the tone for this arc is Kei suddenly struggling the breathe and stand. Given she is only a few weeks into the pregnancy this isn’t a good sign.
Kei takes some convincing before she lays down for a bit. Both Kohtake, Mr Fasagi & Fumiko from the previous arc’s are present in the cafe when this happens. Hiari we learn is now running the inn, though still learning the ropes of her new job. At this time there are hints that you can actually go to the future as well as the past. Just like going to the past, its kind of awkward as you’d need to know the person you want to see would actually be there. Something that is much harder compared to the past as you don’t know if it’ll be the case.
Kei at this point returns and decides to try and go to the future to see her child. Not knowing if she’ll survive the birth to see the child herself. Wanting to know if her child grows up okay. Nagare is kind of against the idea, but reluctantly let Kei go ahead with it. The ghost has gone to the toilet while this was being decided. Kei is already struggling just to make it to the seat given her earlier episode. Kazu then asks Kei for a how many years in the future as well as a precise date and time. Promising the Kei she’ll make sure her child is there at that time to see her. The coffee is poured and Kei goes to the future.
In the future, we find that Nagare and Kazu are away in Hokkaido from the current barkeep, who Kei doesn’t recognize. He is later joined by a familiar school girl. We later learn her name is Miki. Kei recognizes her as she is the girl who traveled back from the future to take a picture with her. They are both a little awkward with each other and Fumiko, who has stayed around to ensure this meeting happens, makes sure Miki talks to her mother while she can. After some more awkward back and forths, Miki confesses to her mother that she is thankful for her bringing her into the world and is doing well. Now being the person in charge at the cafe for the time travel coffee. The story ends in tears of joy as Kei returns to the past in this case, deciding then to go through with the birth, despite the fate she’ll face.
Closing thoughts
That ending did hit me a little. I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I started reading this book. But it has got me hooked. Thankfully there are three more books currently out with a forth out in a few weeks as of writing. So, I’m planning to get those as well as read more tales. This is a little book I can certainly recommend if anyone if looking for a different time-traveling story. Where the people travelling go through more of a change of heart that changing the past or future.
