August 17

In summer Tokyo, the heat never falls from the sky. It rises from below—from the sun-baked asphalt, the blank concrete walls, the metal shells of vending machines. That evening, the air was thick and heavy. It seemed to drift reluctantly from one dark alley to another.

I was walking through Nakano without any particular destination when I heard Chet Baker’s trumpet coming through an open window. The melody seemed almost tangible—as if someone had spilled a little cool water into the dusk. I stopped, followed the sound, and found myself standing outside the door of a tiny jazz bar.

Inside, everything looked strangely familiar: the oak counter, the narrow window, the tables darkened by years of use, and an old Thorens turntable in the corner.

A young waitress stood behind the bar. She looked at me calmly.

“Your usual?”

I smiled.

“Sorry?”

“Asahi and salted peanuts?”

“This is my first time here.”

She watched me silently for a few seconds, then gave the slightest nod.

“Of course.”

Chet Baker sang softly, his voice just a little hoarse, as though the music were coming not from the speakers but from the next room, its door tightly shut.

I sat by the window. A few minutes later, the waitress brought me a beer.

“You’re sitting here again?”

“I told you. I’ve never been here before.”

“I know.”

“Then why ‘again’?”

She shrugged slightly.

“I must have been mistaken.”

Outside, the air shimmered—the asphalt giving back the heat it had stored all day. A woman in a formal suit walked past carrying a sun umbrella, though dusk was already beginning to fall. Perhaps she simply needed something to hold on to.

“Do you have me confused with someone else?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then how do you know me?”

She was silent for a moment.

“You come here every year. On August seventeenth.”

I looked at my watch. It was August 17, 8:41 p.m.

I truly had no memory of this place.

And yet I knew, with absolute certainty, that the latch on the restroom door stuck slightly, and that the third cabinet behind the bar held ceramic sake cups.

“What year did I come here?”

“Last year,” she said. “And the year before that.”

“And what did I do here?”

“One year you were very drunk. Another year you sat here for four hours and answered only ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ or ‘I don’t know.’”

I smiled despite myself.

“And the woman? Did I ever bring a woman here?”

“Yes.”

“What was her name?”

The waitress lowered her eyes.

“You asked me not to remind you.”

“I don’t remember her at all.”

“I know.”

“Why?”

“Because you ask me every year.”

I said nothing.

Chet Baker was still singing.

There were two bottles of Asahi on the table. One was almost empty. The other was untouched.

Without thinking, I moved it closer to the edge of the table.

“Careful,” the waitress said.

I looked at the bottle.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

But at that exact moment, I heard a voice.

A woman’s voice.

Very close.

“You’re putting everything right on the edge again.”

I turned around.

There was no one behind me.

“Did you say something?”

“No.”

The voice was gone.

I looked at the edge of the table. The bottle really was almost hanging over it.

I shivered.

Someone had said that to me before.

Chet Baker finished singing.

The waitress turned the record over and put on another.

Bill Evans’ piano filled the room.

The first chords were quiet, almost transparent.

And with them came a smell.

Dry lavender soap.

For a moment I saw wet hair. A small white cup without a handle.

Then it was gone.

I closed my eyes.

Two bowls of ramen appeared before me.

Steam rose toward the ceiling. Rain streaked the window. Someone was laughing.

I saw her hands.

I heard her voice: “You left your precious book at the counter again…”

I opened my eyes.

The empty chair was across from me.

But now I looked at it differently.

It was 11:55 p.m.

The waitress stood behind the bar, perfectly still.

I looked at the chair again.

And suddenly I understood that it had not always been empty.

Her face emerged in my memory.

Not all at once.

First her eyes, slightly narrowed with laughter.

Then her hair.

Her smile.

And her voice.

Now I knew it.

I remembered how she used to get annoyed when I left my bottle too close to the edge of the table. How, once, she straightened my collar before we went outside and told me I looked as though I were planning to sleep at a train station. How we argued over which ramen was better. How she laughed when I tried to prove that I could eat spicy noodles faster than she could.

I remembered her.

And with her came the memory of something I had been unable to remember at all.

That last, long winter.

The hospital corridors that always smelled too strongly of bleach and citrus air freshener. The way the light gradually left her eyes, leaving behind only a vast, quiet exhaustion. I remembered the day her hand suddenly went cold in mine.

I whispered her name.

“Ayumi.”

The waitress froze.

For several seconds, she simply looked at me.

Then she reached beneath the counter and took out a small envelope.

“She left this for you.”

I didn’t take the letter immediately.

“When?”

“A long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you give it to me before?”

“You didn’t remember her before.”

The clock read 11:59.

I opened the envelope.

The handwriting was unfamiliar and, at the same time, painfully familiar.

“You put your bottle right on the edge of the table again. One day you’re going to spill it, and I’ll tell you I warned you.

We had ramen today, and you said it was the best ramen here. You always say that when you’re hungry.

You left your precious book at the counter again. I’m beginning to think that one day I’ll have to carry it around for you.

Before we left, I straightened your collar, and you said I was acting like your mother. I still haven’t decided whether I should be offended.

And you forgot your umbrella again. I don’t know how anyone can forget the same thing every single time.

You also said you really like Bill Evans. I’ll remember that.

Maybe happiness really is made of things like these. A cup someone puts too close to the edge. A book he leaves behind at the counter. Ramen that somehow always tastes better when we eat it together. Music we listen to side by side.

If tomorrow you forget again what day we met, I’ll remind you.

By the way, it was August 17.”

I read the last line again.

The clock struck midnight.

I waited.

Nothing happened.

I still remembered.

Her name.

Her face.

Her voice.

Ramen.

The cup at the edge of the table.

And the way she laughed.

I looked at the empty chair across from me.

It no longer seemed empty.

Outside, Nakano was disappearing completely into the night.

The waitress silently cleared the empty bottle from the table.

I didn’t get up.

She looked at me.

“You should go home.”

I shook my head.

“Another Asahi, please.”

She said nothing.

She simply took out another bottle and set it in front of me.

The needle on the turntable clicked softly as it skipped to the next track.

I took a sip and instinctively straightened my collar.