La Guatemalan
Disclaimer: Slam Dunk belongs to me. If I'm Takehiko Inoue, that is.
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Part I
Hi, how do you do? I am Kogure Kiminobu, owner of the coffee house 'La Guatemalan' sited in a small corner of Kanagawa. It's not as popular as Starbucks or Hard Rock café, but it's there, all right. After I graduated, I took over the coffee house from my father, who went off to Europe with my mother. It's been four years. Now that I'm 26, people call me 'Koffee' instead of 'Kogure'. It was kind of amusing at first, now, just another name for myself. I don't really mind. Only my close friends call me by my real name.
The coffee house was not big, yet sufficient to house all the customers who come by daily. As always expected, I'll have more customers at tea times. Mitsui told me that La Guatemalan was popular with ladies because of me. I don't know about that, but I do have quite many working females coming around to have coffee. I chat with my customers sometimes, and it was interesting to hear about their lives and their inner emotions. Mitsui also said that people don't hesitate to open up their hearts to me. Why? I don't know either. Perhaps it's the way I don't ask too many questions. Perhaps it's the way I just listen and not make comments. Perhaps it's the way I comfort them. I seriously don't know.
My favourite coffee, is, of course, the Guatemalan coffee, the very one that my coffee house was named after. I often found myself deeply immersed in the thick, fragrant aroma of the chocolate-like coffee. I don't blend my own drinks, though many of the customers do. I prefer the coffee pure and only in this way I could fully enjoy the fragrance of the original coffee.
Most customers go for the famous cappuccino and mocha drinks, and I delight myself in watching how they'll inhale the thick fragrance of the drinks and sigh in pleasure. It gave me a sense of achievement.
Mitsui and Yasuda come along to help, sometimes, and usually I'll find myself with more customers with Mitsui around. It must be the way he flirted with the female customers and laughed with the males. He had his characteristic brand of charisma. Yasuda, on the other hand, was the hard worker. He was always quiet in going about his work, but I had young female customers asking me about the 'sincere-looking fellow who has such an adorable smile'. Friends from the basketball teams come by occasionally. The other day, almost all of the Shohoku team came by: Akagi, Shiozaki, Kakuta, Rukawa, Sakuragi, Ayako, Miyagi… It was just like the old times, when everyone did their catching up and these old friends occupied half of the café. A girl was terrified when she saw Akagi and Sakuragi. Sendoh, Maki, Fujima, Hanagata, Koshino, Uekusa, and many of the players from the rival teams came by too. Despite my insistence, they refused to let me give them a treat, saying that there were too many of them, and that I'll make losses if I were to give all of them a treat.
I enjoy life the way it is now. The customers were often different, and I enjoyed observing them as they went about their business.
Part II
She is a lady in her thirties, who came to my coffee house almost daily. After getting her usual blend of Colombian coffee, she would sit in a corner of the coffee house, by the window, and start to write in the notebook that she always had with her. She reminded me of the famous author J.K. Rowling, who started off her Harry Potter business in a small time café. Perhaps this lady would be another Rowling to make the top of the bestsellers. I often notice her staring out of the windows at the cars racing by. She noticed every single detail of the streets. I suspected that these things that she saw went into whatever she wrote in the notebook.
She's around 5"4, and had frizzled shoulder-length hair with blonde highlights. Her small, slightly slanted eyes had a very strong local flavour to them, and she looked just like any typical modern Japanese woman. I wondered if she had a job, since she spent about 4 to 5 hours in my coffee house every day. She dressed very neatly, though. Perhaps she was a rich housewife who had nothing to do but write. Perhaps she was like Rowling at that time, disheveled, and had a lot of economic problems. Well, I don't know for sure. She wasn't very friendly, as compared to the other female customers that I had, and always regarded me with a hard look that suggested that she was probably very cynical. Aye, perhaps she'll write something like Agatha Christie's thrillers and mysteries. Still, she came by every day to enjoy the tranquility of my coffee house.
He was an old man in his eighties, who came by daily without fail. We converse for hours each day about whatever that was going on in the world. Currently, the United States launched an attack on Iraq, along with Britain. Old Mr. Kawakoto expressed his strong dislike for the wars, then. He remembered sitting through the Second World War, where he was a young man in his twenties, just the age to go to war. All of them were patriotic and hot-blooded males who would go to war for the best of their country, and yet, when he killed his first victim, Mr. Kawakoto said that he was severely sickened with guilt. The minute war was over, he rushed back to Japan, promising himself that he will never taint the souls of any innocent beings again. This to me was relatively shocking, as we were not told anything about the harshness of the war our country had raged against the others. Mr. Kawakoto had stared in disgust at the picture of the aircraft carrions and fighter jets of the American soldiers and I could see his hands shaking ever so slightly. Did he tremble for the cruelty of the war? Or for the painful memories? I didn't know, and didn't ask.
Mr. Kawakoto was now the Grandfather of four happy children, and his two sons had been kind to him. He felt content with his life. His wife had passed away ten years ago. He was a pleasant person to speak to, and often I found myself learning much that were not taught in school. His favourite coffee was always the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, though he would not hesitate to try other flavours.
Part III
It was nearly 9.30pm, and I was just getting ready to close the shop. Usually, there were almost no customers after 7pm, as people don't drink coffee at late hours. I keep the shop open for the sake of people who wanted to rest their feet from traveling.
A girl in her early twenties stumbled into the shop, both of her cheeks flushed red. I could tell that she had been crying, from the stains of moisture on her face and the red, swollen eyelids of hers.
"Can I have some Venezuela coffee?" She told me, her voice raspy from crying.
I was quite surprised by her choice of coffee, as the Venezuela coffee was relatively acidy compared to the more popular ones. Besides, I don't stock that coffee.
"The Venezuela is not available, Miss, and drinking coffee at this time would make you insomniac," I advised her.
"It's all right, I don't want to go to sleep anyway. I don't want to dream about him and hurt myself all over again," She started sobbing softly.
"In this case, I recommend you the Colombian blend, it is sweet and full-bodied, and more popular among girls," I suggested.
"Okay, thank you," She dried her tears with her hanky, crumpled and wet.
After drinking the coffee, she seemed to calm down. I was washing the coffee cups when she suddenly spoke, "He told me that I was stupid and ugly, and that I am not fitted to be with him,"
She was obviously out of love, ditched by some shallow man. I didn't say anything, but listened.
"He went for my best friend, can you believe it?" She blew her nose on a piece of tissue paper that she conveniently took from the counter, "She is prettier than me, and smarter too," As though someone had trodden on her nerves, she started crying again. I waited for her to calm down before I told her the usual thing about how beauty is only skin-deep. I believed that she understood this concept as well, but the man had some how rumbled her thoughts. She must have been deeply infatuated with him. "If he couldn't look past your faults and love you for who you are, why cling to him and get upset about it?" I told her.
Before I knew it, she stood and came round the counter. Hugging me for all she was worth, she asked me to be her next boyfriend. Oh, not again, I had thought. Strange how girls have an affinity for men who could comfort them, and this situation was not new. I told her that we had not known each other well, and that I already had a girlfriend, which was, actually, a blatant lie. But that was probably the most effective way of dissuading a persistent admirer without hurting her. I wondered how popular hunks like Sendoh, Rukawa and Maki handle their own fans and admirers. I know that Rukawa just ignored them all.
The girl left after she finished the coffee, telling me of her gratitude. I hope she'd truly gotten over the man, and that she'll not try to pounce on the next man who comforts her. Being the owner of this coffee house was interesting. I got so much more out of life.
Hm… the aroma of La Guatemalan.
=OWARI=