4. The Door of Fate Was in a Different Place
4. The Door of Fate Was in a Different Place
As I write this story, the roughness of that time sometimes drifts back into my chest.
Something that had sunk to the bottom begins to stir—small ripples in still water.
Even so, today, I had already decided to let Ryohei read it.
The air in the room is faintly damp, clinging to the last traces of sleep.
Outside the window, hydrangeas heavy with last night’s rain sway under their own weight.
From the kitchen, I hear the gentle hiss of a small flame.
Ryohei is heating water in a copper kettle from the 1870s.
The flame flickers red and blue against the tarnished metal, casting brief shadows that disappear as quickly as they form.
Copper conducts heat well, and the steam that rises from it seems to carry a softness.
The coffee brewed with that water is deeply fragrant, its taste round and mellow on the tongue.
It’s only since we began making jeans that I started describing things this way.
Before, I wouldn’t have dreamed of keeping such an old, secondhand pot in our kitchen—let alone using it.
"Smells amazing," I murmur, pulling my eyes away from my iPhone and glancing toward Ryohei.
He wraps a small towel around the kettle’s wooden handle and begins to pour water over the grounds in the filter, his movements practiced and precise.
The scent rises into the moist air, sweet with a faint, burnt edge.
It seeps slowly into my chest, defining the outline of who I am.
Back then, I think, we were still drinking instant coffee.
“I’ve written this far.”
I hand him the iPhone along with the coffee, letting him see the draft as it stands.
He takes a sip from the orange Pyrex mug, then silently settles into his seat.
Ryohei doesn’t speak.
His thumb scrolls the screen, his eyes following line by line.
I watch his face with something close to suspicion—studying his brow, the corners of his mouth, the rhythm of his blinking.
But nothing changes.
The only thing that fills the silence is the lingering aroma of coffee in the air.
Then I begin to hear my own heartbeat in my ears.
Thump. Thump.
The sound I hadn’t noticed a moment ago sharpens in focus, and the space between Ryohei’s still expression and my rising pulse grows tighter.
“So? What do you think?”
I can’t wait any longer and speak up.
“It’s good,” he says, eyes still on the screen.
Just that.
A thin chill runs through my chest.
I hadn’t realized I’d been hoping for more.
Lifting the cup as an excuse, I glance sideways at him.
“Really? It’s not weird?
Did it feel like what it was back then?
Was I the only one falling apart?”
He finally lifts his head.
After a short pause, he says, “Of course I felt like I had to do something.”
At that moment, something inside me crumbled—quietly, without sound.
It wasn’t relief or disappointment.
It was something harder to name—a kind of misalignment.
“Do you remember the night I cried because I was scared of the future?”
“Hmm… not really,” he says with casual ease.
I lose my words for a moment—then can’t help but laugh.
So that’s how it is.
For me, it had been an unforgettable night.
But for him, it had simply passed by, just another part of the scenery.
From there, the conversation turned into a string of memories—or maybe a kind of fact-checking.
What were you thinking then?
Why did you say that?
Here’s how I felt.
Some things were off.
Some were closer than I expected.
Then we reached the part about the "door of fate," and our memories diverged in surprising ways.
That place—where our lives quietly shifted course.
We pointed to completely different spots.
“No way. It was definitely there.”
“What? No, it was that corner over there.”
Neither of us gave in.
Eventually, we pulled up Google Maps.
And that’s when it got interesting.
Memories from nearly twenty years ago turned out to be vague, full of assumptions.
The town on the screen looked more vivid than what I remembered.
A hill I thought had vanished reappeared, while the café sign I was sure had been there was nowhere to be found.
The scent of coffee still hung in the room.
We leaned in close, peering into the screen together.
The door that had once opened for us wasn’t visible on the map.
But in the depths of memory, its outline remained.
The texture of that entrance—where our paths quietly split—was still there.
That stillness, that strange certainty we’d felt while standing before it—it hadn’t faded.
It was a small journey through a town made of memory.
And as we laughed at how ridiculous and nostalgic it all was,
I felt the roughness of that time stir again inside my chest.
Before I knew it, I was brushing against the shadow of that “big event.”
Sensing this, I gently closed the conversation.
That part of the story—
I’ll tell it a little later.