Cafe Memoir

Dusk on the day before moving. Surrounded by cardboard boxes, Yosuke Kiritani was clearing out his bookshelf.

As he reached for the top shelf, his hand touched an unfamiliar album. Had he ever owned something like this?

He opened the page casually, and his breath hitched.

A woman smiling at a window seat. She was wearing a white blouse, holding a coffee cup with both hands. Beside her—sat a smiling version of himself.

"Who is this person..."

He desperately tried to trace his memories. But he couldn't recall anything. Yet, it felt strangely nostalgic. A restless feeling stirred deep in his chest.

When he looked at the back of the photo, it read "Cafe Memoir 2022.10.15".

He turned the next page. The same woman again. And the next. Many photos of the two of them laughing followed. Like a record of dates.

But he couldn't remember her face or her name at all.

A headache began to set in. Why were there no memories, even though they were in so many pictures together?

Yosuke stood up.

"I'll go there."

If he went to this cafe, he might understand something. He felt that the clues to his lost memories were there.

Yosuke took the album and left the room.

The next morning, Yosuke was walking through the city, relying on the background of the photo.

After searching for a while, he found a dark blue noren curtain in an old alleyway. On the handwritten sign it said,
"Cafe Memoir"

This is it.
When he opened the door, the scent of deep coffee greeted him.

"Welcome."

From behind the counter, the white-haired master looked up. He felt as if the man's eyes had lit up for a moment, as if he had recognized something.

"Um, excuse me. Have I ever been here before?"

Yosuke showed him the photograph.

The master stared intently at the photo, then pointed to a seat by the window.

"You were always sitting there."

His heart skipped a beat.

"I knew it. And so, this woman is..."
"Would you like a blend?"

The master said, as if to cut off his question.

He sat in the window seat as if guided. Strangely, he felt as though his body remembered it. As if he had sat here many times before.

Before long, the coffee was brought over. Steam rose from the cup.

The moment he took a sip—

Fragments of memory raced through his mind. This seat. This taste. The voice of a woman laughing, saying, "It's delicious." The sensation of a warm hand. But the images were blurred. He couldn't see her face.

"Master, don't you remember this woman?"

He showed him the photo once more.

After a long silence, the master gave a small shake of his head.

"Well... we have so many customers, you see."

He sensed it was a lie. After all, the master had just said he "always sat there."

He glanced at the wall and noticed an old pendulum clock had stopped. The hands remained frozen at 2:15 PM.

He looked out the window. The city scenery seemed to have lost some of its sense of reality.

When he finished his coffee and went to pay, the master said,

"Please come again. Eventually... you might remember."

It was a strange way to put it.

When I left the shop and looked back, the master was watching me through the window. His expression was—a mix of sympathy and something else.

Early on the morning of the move, unable to shake the feeling, Yosuke headed back to that place one more time.

He walked down the usual alley. He turned the corner.
His feet stopped.

In the place where the cafe should have been, a pastel-colored general store stood.
A sign read, "In our second year of business."

"That can't be... it was definitely here yesterday."

He looked around. The position of the streetlights, the building next door—something was different.

He called out to a woman passing by.

"Excuse me, wasn't there a cafe here?"
"A cafe? I've never heard of one. I've lived around here for over ten years."
"But yesterday, it was definitely..."
"This has been a general store for as long as I can remember."

The woman walked away looking puzzled.
He opened the album with trembling hands.
The woman's figure was fading.

Her white blouse and her smile were disappearing as if they were transparent. And then—at the cafe window, Yosuke was sitting all alone.
The seat across from him was empty. As if no one had ever been there at all.

He turned the page. The woman had vanished from every photo. Himself, smiling alone.
Himself, holding a cup alone.

On the last page, words he didn't recognize appeared.
"Memories are illusions born of loneliness—from Cafe Memoir."

In the passenger seat of the moving truck, Yosuke kept the now-empty album on his lap.

"We're heading out now."

The driver's voice. Yosuke nodded weakly.
The truck started to move. At that moment, a dark blue noren curtain was reflected in the rearview mirror.

He looked back and saw "Cafe Memoir" in the corner. A woman in a white blouse was sitting by the window. She was looking at him, smiling sadly.

"Wait!"

But his voice didn't reach her. The truck picked up speed.
He looked back once more.
There was nothing. Just an empty lot.

When he opened the album on his lap, there were only blank white pages.
But on the last page, new words appeared.

"Let's meet again. In the next town, too, Cafe Memoir will be waiting for you."

Yosuke stared out the window.
Was he really going to a new city?

Or was it just—repeating the same memories over and over?
The truck merged onto the highway.

(1967 characters)

#Participating in the 2nd 'Those Who Lose Everything' Literary Award.