Coffee with you on a Tuesday.

The usual road, the usual way home.
After buying a cup of coffee at the convenience store, I warm my chilled hands. I watched idly as my breath, still white, dissolved into the air and sky in an instant.
I am waiting at dusk on a Tuesday for you, who never arrives at the meeting place on time. I don't know where you are or what you're doing right now, but I am soothing this moment with coffee.

I was thinking while idly watching the scattered light of headlights. I was wondering whether to continue my job or quit. If I wanted to continue, I could. But a single word said to me at work today stuck in my heart.

"Let's do our best to hit our numbers again."

I joined the company, overcame failures, and spent my time feeling a sense of purpose, but the words said to me today left me unable to move. The words spoken and the expression of the person who said them keep spinning around in my head. Tomorrow is the company's regular holiday. It is unbearable to think that I will spend my long-awaited day off carrying these words with me.

After taking a sip of the sweet cup of coffee with milk and sugar, I look up to search for you, and tears stream down my cheeks.

In that moment, memories suddenly overflowed as if to fill the void in my heart.

I had a dream.

But I failed.

Now, I am doing a job far removed from the dream I had envisioned. Every day, I am swayed on the train, go to the office, carry a heavy bag on my shoulder, and struggle daily to cross the lines drawn by being chased by numbers. But I don't think of the days I live my daily life like this as ordinary; I have worked hard because they are just as important as when I was dreaming. Yet, I wonder why—perhaps because of the twilight—my feelings have overflowed.

"Oh man... how pathetic..."

I can't really taste the cup of coffee through my lukewarm tears, but the sweetness of the sugar soaked into my body and I felt a little relieved. I leaned against the iron fence right next to me and looked up at the sky.

____

Trot-trot, click-clack, trot-trot, click-clack... the rhythm of an unbalanced pair. One person and one animal are walking from across the intersection.

My childhood friend, Tomo. Hana, a 16-year-old elderly toy poodle.

"Hana."

I gently hug you, who never arrives on time. You, with a coat that has become appropriate for your age, wag your tail as if it might break off.

"Weren't you cold? You should have gone into that convenience store."
"I wasn't really in the mood for that."

"Sorry it took so long."

Hana's stride becomes a smaller step every year, a fraction of Tomo's. How many minutes does it take for one person and one animal to walk all the way here together? My day off is Wednesday. Only on the day before that do Tomo and Hana come to pick me up at the convenience store closest to the station.

"It's okay. I'm fine."

As I hug Hana without looking at Tomo's face, Tomo watches over us quietly.
Tomo is perceptive; he has always been that way since long ago. Rather than understanding without being told, I think he can just see things—like the color of a person's heart.

"Shall we go to my place's counter? My old man is there by himself right now, so it's pretty relaxed."
"Sure, I'd like that."

Tomo's family home is a small coffee shop his father opened. Jazz music plays, and there are records and an old organ in the shop. And more than anything, I loved the collection of music boxes and hourglasses lined up on the counter. Ever since we were children, I grew up watching them with Tomo, resting my chin on my hand.

I had a dream.

A dream of becoming a saxophonist.

Even after I realized it wouldn't come true, the saxophone remained by my side, and from time to time, I would maintain it and play it. It is the footprint of my dream.

"Let me hold Hana."
"Oh, I'll take that cup."
"...Thank you."

When I lifted the now-lighter Hana, she curled up small in my arms.

Tomo is kind. Not flashy, but not plain either. It seems he's going away for training starting next month to take over the coffee shop after his father. I can't imagine Tomo, who was always by my side, being gone; we've reached an age where we can't just easily say we're lonely. And with Tomo going far away, I feel like I shouldn't tell him my true feelings right now.

"Shall we brew some coffee when we get to the shop?"
"Yeah."

I noticed that the tear tracks on my cheeks hadn't fully dried. The words from others never truly disappear, but I feel it's a waste to be swallowed by those waves and drown. As I hug Hana, who has curled up small like a child again, I can hear the sound of her breathing. It's the sound of a voice living in the present. Even if small, it is warmly alive. Thinking that, I started to wish that the words said to me at work would already become words of the distant, distant past. I want to live in the present, too. Even if it's faint and small. Even if it's not beautiful or pretty.

"You should come visit the shop where I'll be training, too."
Tomo says.
"Tokyo, huh... that's far from here, isn't it..."
It feels far, as if you might become someone I don't know.
"Yeah, but come visit sometimes."

The best promise we can make, unable to become lovers. I'm sure I'll be overflowing with tears when I remember the Tuesday coffee you brewed for me, but if there's a promise to meet, I want to live making that my dream.

"Oh, right, my senior is looking for someone who can play the sax."
"Is that so?"
"Apparently, they're looking for a band member to play live at a restaurant on Fridays and Saturdays. He's a good senior. He's great at the tambourine."
"Wait, what is that?"
"It seems it's hard to shake a tambourine while singing jazz."

Through Tomo's introduction, I decided to go observe a mixed-gender jazz band. When I imagined my senior's tambourine skills and laughed, I felt like today's tears were gradually drying up. What a simple person I am.

Hana is sleeping in my arms, breathing softly while listening to our laughter. Before I knew it, Tomo is drinking my cup of coffee.

An autumn twilight. I felt as if the scenery before my eyes was melting into the night.

A month later, a photo arrived from Tomo.
It's the shop where he's training. I zoom in on the sign: "RO...J..."

[cafe ROJIURA]

On a Tuesday night, I wanted to go meet your smile, which looked so happy in front of the sign. For the first time, I try drip-brewing coffee, something I've never brewed before.

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