Week 6: コーヒーが冷めないうちに (Intermediate BC)

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Week 6

The second story begins!

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Start date: 24 July 2021
Previous part: Week 5
Next part : Week 7
Wordlist : Google doc

Reading

Week Start Date End Phrase End Page (PB) Page Count
Week 6 24 July 「いえ」とだけ答えた。 114 22

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun!

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I am reading along
  • I am reading behind the schedule
  • I have finished this part
  • I have decided to drop the book
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0 voters

Well, I wasn’t expecting this chapter to start with a history lesson.

Perhaps the cafe stays cool because there’s a ghost which does a lap of the place once a day. :slightly_smiling_face:

5 Likes

If that helps to keep a room cool, I’ll invite a ghost to my appartment here. 暑いです。

5 Likes

This book is starting to feel a lot like a vocabulary lesson. We got an exhaustive list of (mainly women’s) clothes, then a brief history lesson, then a huge list of food of all sorts. I wonder what’s next.

6 Likes

Sped through this week’s reading in one and a half days. I enjoyed the change of pace and the lack of Fumiko.

Language related questions

-Anyone know what「あんにゃろ~」means? (around the 30% mark?)

-In this book I’ve seen many (all?) numbers written like this: 一〇二三〇円, no 万、千、or 百。Is this common? Are they spoken like this too, digit by digit?

Plot related thoughts (spoilers)

Glad we touched both on Hirai’s and Fusagi’s stories. Not sure if the Hirai/sister part is supposed to be humorous or tragic. Probably a bit of both. And I certainly don’t know what to make of the huge food list the sister supposedly consumed.

The timeline confuses me a little. It was spring in the previous story, early summer in this one. Yet some details indicate that this story probably takes place before the first one. Is Kazu new at the job? Was that her first conversation with Fusagi? Fusagi remains as mysterious as ever. I wonder whether returning to the past to deliver a letter doesn’t break the rules. Maybe not, if it doesn’t change anything. Or if the “past” is in its own bubble, affecting nothing, as some of us suspect.

If I find myself with some time to waste, I’m thinking I just might try and compile a list with all the clothes (and maybe food) mentioned in the book. I’m curious how long it would turn out to be.

4 Likes

あの野郎. [citation]

Yep.

Not in this situation, no.

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That’s sort of what I gathered, but I wasn’t sure. It also seemed strange that she wasn’t acting like herself or something.

The long list of foods amused me greatly. I think Kawaguchi is doing a great job at setting up intriguing mysteries here and there, then allowing them to unfold at a nice pace. Gotta keep restraining myself from reading ahead!

4 Likes

Finally reached this point in the reading. Think it’s her first conversation with Fusagi not because she’s new, but because Fusagi only just noticed her for the first time. Like the book says, usually he doesn’t look up from his magazines while she’s refilling his coffee.

Think it’s mostly just that her customer service mode slipped for a moment in the initial exchange.

4 Likes

Hmm, that’s true. Of course he should have noticed her as she greeted him every time he entered the cafe at least, but there’s something very spacey about Fusagi, so who knows.

3 Likes

Started (and finished) a bit late this week. I love how interesting all of these characters are even though we’ve still only seen bits and pieces of each of them. How adorable is Kei? :relieved: I like her and Hirai’s relationship. I get sort of a “jaded cynic and childish optimist” vibe from them - Hirai doesn’t strike me as the type to let many people close, but she probably can’t help it when it comes to someone like Kei.

This line in particular seems to suggest otherwise to me:

数は、房木のいつもと違う態度に、コーヒーのおかわり以外に何か聞きもらした事でもあったのかと思ったのだろう…

For her to be able to make that observation, I would assume she’s at a point where she has seen him regularly. Though it’s possible they’ve never really spoken before. But for him to not even recognize her face is strange. Almost as strange as the fact that he doesn’t seem to remember his own wife’s name.

I’m very intrigued by Fusagi as well, and dying to know what’s in that letter/what’s going on with his wife. I might read a bit ahead this weekend just to make sure I don’t fall behind as I almost did this week.

3 Likes

As for Fusagi

I think that fusagi suffers of some type of amnesia…he doesn’t know where his wife is but he tries to explain that it’s not that he really doesn’t know, maybe he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember her name. Maybe he only remember a day with her and after that something happened and now he doesn’t remember…he always read travel magazines, maybe he’s trying to temper where he is from? :laughing: and the lady who came to talk to him during the last story was talking to him like to a baby… what do you think? I went to far? :laughing:

4 Likes

Hello everyone, the thread for Week 7 reading is now open: Week 7, please join the discussion!

3 Likes