Before The Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

If you ever had a chance to go back in time, who would you meet? Most importantly, why?

Live with no regrets, they say. But if we could go back in time, would they still say the same?

Kawaguchi divided this book into four interconnected stories - The lovers, Husband and Wife, The Sisters, Mother and Child - all connected by Love.

Each chapter focuses on a different protagonist, with the concept of them traveling back in time to meet whoever they want to meet on one particular seat in this chilly cafe. Beside returning before the coffee gets cold, there are a couple of rules they need to strictly follow, or else, they’ll turn into a demon.

The chapters are very well-connected where you’ll see each character is related back and forth, drawing a full circle at the end of the book.

Time has always been a vague idea. It can be measured in numbers, spaces, memories, songs, feelings, and more; that explains when the protagonists go back in time, it’s so easy for them to lose track of time because they’re captured in its measurement.

Each story fills with a bit of love and regrets which come from the self. There’s something in life they didn’t do, didn’t treasure, until they’re losing that special person. Then, they try to find the finest chance to hold onto it, even after they’re gone. The mutual circumstance of the four chapters is that after the protagonists return from the past, they’re free, they live on, and most importantly, they’re better. It all comes from the self and the mind.

It’s been a while since a book made me feel a bit emotional. It resonates me with pain, loss and sacrifices - all rooted in Love.

Sometimes, wanting to have a second chance doesn’t really mean you want to make things right, but to fill in the void of regrets in your heart, so to hope you can make things “right”.

Love comes in all form - you can love someone from a distance. It’s never mutual. It’s possible that you keep on loving someone without the other person loving you back, or even without them knowing. Love comes from the self, and you can only love when you have love in you.

Love now, before it’s too late.