In the StoryThe Kōenji Café
For forty years, they have told him about impossible lives. Today, their stories begin to connect. At the Kōenji café, Shigeru Arai serves, listens, and lets his customers leave with their silences. He has heard of loves that cannot be found, different families, lives nothing can confirm. Then details begin to align between people who should not share the same memories.
Open the novel ↗A moment in the opening pages
She did not continue immediately. She was removing bones from the sanma with the concentration she had already possessed at eight, when she convinced herself that swallowing a bone would make her grow a second tongue. Sachiko had let her believe it for an entire week, from exhaustion or amusement. In the other memory, Yui had teased her until Mai threw a salted plum at her face.Read the excerpt ↗