Americano
Of Earth, so bitter
Smelted in inferno, brown
It keeps me living
___
When I first started university, I was able to get a single 4 1/2 tatami room to live in, thanks to a relative of my mother that lived in Kyoto. He had small properties across the city, and he let me rent there for dirt cheap for the first few months, until I could find myself a good part-time job to live on.
Although it was small, it was a good place, mostly quiet, close to the Okazaki street, keeping me close enough to the university and my work place. And since the café I worked at was very close to the university, I had it very easy just going straight to work after taking classes. Well, when I used to actually attend the classes, at least.
Nowadays, though, it doesn't really serve much of a purpose. Well, except that I can have a short walk through Yoshidayama park, and look at the beauty of the Sakura season in all its glory at this time of the year. Some things in the world are always pretty, irrespective of how bad your day, or your entire life is.
As I walk through the stone paved path across the park, I can see just how beautiful the world looks when it's coloured in stretches of pink. Maybe that is why most depressed girls like Hello Kitty, it must serve the purpose to make them see the world in a better light, giving them some respite from their terrible mental health. I cannot really say, though, throughout life, my interaction with women has been minimal.
Irrespective of what anyone might say, Kyoto University and the residential areas around its open campus are very good for recreational activities like sketching, writing, playing music, or smoking cannabis. I have never tried one of those four things though, so I would not know entirely; but there is a lot of inspiration to be found in this part of the city.
The café I work at is on the side of the main campus entrance, right on my way to the university, if I am actually going for classes. It is really close to the Kamo river bank as well, so a lot of people often come in evenings when the sun has just set, and the land has become dark.
Kamo river truly is the heart of kyoto. Oh, the great Kamogawa. Subaru once told me that the bank is a great place to hang around with your lover, and watch as the sun goes down. I have seen plenty of sunsets, and they are beautiful indeed, like most things in the world that are beautiful, but I do not really feel much in terms of affection for them.
When I said this too Subaru, he only laughed, and told me to watch one with my girlfriend someday, when I have one. I don't think I will be though, I have little expectations from life and the love of another human being is the least of them all. When I had said this exact same thing to him back then, he had laughed again, and then just told me that I will find someone and I won't even realise when and how we both will end up at a place neither would have expected.
What a know-it-all. It will take nothing from me to prove him wrong. All I need to do is exist, and that will be the end of it.
While lost in thoughts, I was already far enough that I could see the infamous Kyodai Tokeday, the majestic clock tower standing in all its glory. It was a sight to behold the first week I started attending the university, until it became a sight to look past. In no sense there is anything wrong with the huge clock tower in the middle of the main administrative building circle of the university, but it is only for so long that one can appreciate its existence.
Anyway, if I can see the Tokeday, it means I am right where I need to be. The exit of the torii, and the café I work at, sits first on the left turn before the thin walkway turns into a wide roadway.
Although I have reached, it's still just 3 PM right now, half an hour till my shift starts. I guess you will be reaching places early when you have nothing else to look forward to throughout the day. Before I turn left towards the shop, I walk straight instead, towards the wending machine ahead. A cheap Americano is all I need, for 120 yen.
I think I have a few coins in my wallet. Yeah, three 100 yen coins. I take out two of them, and push them into the machine.
*kacha*
Then makes the sound as they fall into the machine, and the items that I can buy light up. I select the 120 yen Boss Americano, it's cheap, but it does the job. And I don't particularly hate the taste.
*kachink* *thud*
The machine lets out a bell like sound before a can drops into the reception box. I pick it up and slowly walk towards the huge Yoshida Shrine torii. There is no place to sit around here, but the pillar of the gate is good enough for me to lean against.
*chink* *psst*
I open the can and take a sip. Bitter.
Every time I drink this cheap Americano, all I think of is how bad it tastes, and how I would be better off buying something sweeter, but then, the very next day I come back to buy the same thing again. It's almost like how I know exactly what's wrong with my life, what I should stop doing, and what I should actually do in its stead, but the problem is no desire to act. I have no motivation to actually sleep early at night, so that I can wake up early in the morning, take classes, improve my grades, and graduate to find a job in the IT industry. Though there are other reasons to not wanting to pursue this path, the most important is simple, the ability to practice inaction. The same way, even if I think a flavoured coffee, maybe something sweet, would actually be good for me, I don't have any desire to actually make that change. Because to me, in the end, it is all meaningless.
If any of you read Camus, right now you will probably be telling me to do so anyway, even if it is meaningless. I would not disagree, even if life is meaningless, there is no reason to not live, to not have joy and happiness, but I leave the part about living to the people who actually want to live.
I tilt the can upside down above my mouth as I take in the last drop of that loathed concoction on my tongue. I do not know how it happens, that even though the coffee tastes horrendously terrible in the beginning, every time, right when it's about to end, I feel a strange sense of yearning for that taste which I previously found hard to stand. It's something to wonder about.
Done drinking, I throw the can in the dustbin nearby, and walk towards the café.
From the entrance, you only need to turn right, and you can see the entirety of this café. It's a small café, with 5 round tables in the middle, out of which, none are occupied. Further in towards the counter are two chairs, of which one is occupied by an average looking man. He seems to be saying something to the barista currently on the shift. On the right of the counter is the glass wall side table, that's mostly for people who want to work or study alone in the shop. It gives a view of the outside, providing ample light to the people who sit there.
Two of the chairs on that table are occupied, by what seems like two friends, a girl and a boy, or possibly a couple too. They're reading something. I walk further in, I see a familiar drawing in the book the boy is reading. Ah… it's the latest volume of Chainsaw Man.
As I walk past those two, I see the person manning the counter is Saitou Hitagi-san. She's a senpai in the fourth year of electrical engineering department. Ah, the person sitting at the counter is a familiar sight. He's her boyfriend, a regular to the shop, and he often comes to pick up Saitou-senpai when her shift is about to end, and that time is about to be soon, in around 15 minutes.
"
I greet senpai, and she nods back at me. This is something I have got very used to. Saitou-senpai is not a person of many words, and she usually does not say much. I look at the person sitting in the chair in front of her, and nod at him, to which he smiles. Yeah, although I never caught his name, that senpai is a nice guy.
I walk past Saitou-senpai, towards the backrooms where most of our stock is stored, and also where the lockers and the changing rooms are.
And in there, is a man of thin stature, but he is tall, taller than you would generally expect a Japanese man to be. He is Manager-san, and, as you would expect from the given pronoun, he is the manager of the shop. Manager-san once had a name, when he was born, but due to his birth name being coincidentally the same as the name of an intergalactic entity that eats stars, it was unanimously decided that speaking his name would be forbidden, for the collective good of humanity and the earth. Since then, he has been referred to as, The Manager-san.
…
Alright. Maybe not. He is a normal human with a normal name, it's just, sometimes we tell this story to the new part-timers to throw them off, and it gives us a good laugh. I think those are the only few times when I have seen Saitou-senpai actually laugh. What a wonder.
Anyway, the man notices me enter, and lights up with a smile that could wipe away the sorrows of a grieving mother. A mother grieving the little scrap on her child's skin. Of course, he does not have a divine smile, he is a normal man like everyone else. But he does have his way with words, quite humorous even, I might say.
"Good evening, Manager-san." I decide to greet him in English today, for some odd reason.
While the whole story about his birth name is indeed fake, we do not actually call him with his real name. Nobody's ever felt the need to, just saying Manager-san has always sufficed.
"Hai hai, good evening Fujiwara-kun. Ready to work, are we?"
"Yes sir!"
I bow to him for some reason, and then head into the dressing room. I need to change into my uniform. Although there is still around 15 minutes to my shift, I feel it's better to start early and relieve Saitou-senpai of her duties. The less stress to the final year students, the better.
Although the graduation exams for most graduating year students are over, two exams for Saitou-senpai are still left. If I remember correctly, then Subaru told me that Saitou-senpai had got really sick during her exams last year, and had to miss last two of her exams because she was hospitalised. And as it happened to be, the reason for her hospitalisation in the first place was exhaustion due to overworking and little to no rest.
Although she is taking it easier this year, she is the kind of person who tends to go into flow working, and then ends up overusing herself. Hence, it's better to just make things easier for her.
Once I'm done with changing clothes, I fold the clothes I wore on the way, and put them in my locker outside the changing room. I had already taken off my windbreaker and hung it on the hanger for jackets right besides the two small lockers, which in total only have 4 cells.
"Time to get to work." I tell myself as I lock the little door of my locker cell.
I head out of the backrooms, and greet Manager-san on the way out again. Now that I see, he seems to be sorting the new stock for coffee beans, and sugar we probably received late in the morning today.
"Saitou-senpai."
I green senpai as I reach the counter which she was manning. As it happens to be, the girl and the boy reading Chainsaw Man seem to have left already, so the only people in the shop right now are senpai and her boyfriend. When she sees me, she seems to have formed a little grin. She must be really happy, and as I look the other senpai, he seems pretty happy too. Yes, that makes sense.
Saitou-senpai leaves the counter to me now. Although I am ready to work, there is no one in the store right now. Strange are the afternoon days of spring. Sometimes we are completely full, and I am stretched too thin working all the orders, and sometimes it's empty, like it is right now.
The guy sitting in front of me, who is supposed to be my senpai, has put his head on the counter and closed his eyes. He must be tired too, for one reason or the other.
If there was someone else, then I might have tried to make some small-talk, but senpai and I have formed an understanding over time, so I do not need to talk polite words to him.
And since Saitou-senpai had already cleaned up the counter, and left me no chore till a customer enters, I cannot even busy myself with a chore, so I can only just sit down.
But that is the problem after all, I cannot sit still. If I sit, then the thoughts running around my head quadruple in intensity, and then I have to think about all the things that are wrong with me and my life. Good thing I don't have to wait long though, since Saitou-senpai is back soon, now changed into a grey top, black pants, and a faded blue cardigan used as an overcoat.
Ah, they must be in a hurry, probably studying for exams.
"
As senpai and her boyfriend are about to leave, I open my mouth.
"Otsukaresama desu, Fujiwara-kun."
Senpai speaks to me for the first time today. As I previously said, if not needed, senpai is the kind of person who would generally not speak much.
As both of them head out, I sit down on my stool again, trying not to contemplate my life. Desperately, I wait for some customer, so that I can be freed from the shackles of mine own mind.
Wow, what a try-hard attempt at poetry. I am just about to pummel my own self at such a disgusting attempt at humour, that I hear the melodious sound of a bell ringing as the door to the café opens from the outside.
Finally, a customer has finally graced me with their presence. My saviour.