Before Your Memory Fades

In Hakodate, a city of sloping streets and old-world charm, sits Café Donna Donna, home to a peculiar urban legend: a single chair in the café allows customers to travel through time. But the rules are as frustrating as they are mysterious. You can only meet people who have visited the café, you cannot change the present, you must stay seated, and your journey lasts only as long as your coffee stays warm. The time-traveling coffee can only be poured by a woman of the Tokita bloodline, aged seven or older. These rules, passed down through generations, are never explained—"because that's the rul

Theme 1: The Chair's Unbreakable Rules

This thread running through Before Your Memory Fades gives the story its emotional weight. Toshikazu Kawaguchi weaves it into the narrative with skill, ensuring that the reader feels the stakes as deeply as the characters do.

Theme 2: A Daughter Across Time

This thread running through Before Your Memory Fades gives the story its emotional weight. Toshikazu Kawaguchi weaves it into the narrative with skill, ensuring that the reader feels the stakes as deeply as the characters do.

Theme 3: The Photo's Hidden Message

This thread running through Before Your Memory Fades gives the story its emotional weight. Toshikazu Kawaguchi weaves it into the narrative with skill, ensuring that the reader feels the stakes as deeply as the characters do.

What Readers Say About Before Your Memory Fades

Before Your Memory Fades has resonated with readers for its emotional honesty and vivid storytelling. Many describe finishing it in a single sitting — drawn forward by Toshikazu Kawaguchi's prose and an almost desperate need to know how it ends.

A Passage Worth Sitting With

"The Chair's Unbreakable Rules" — Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before Your Memory Fades

About the Author

Toshikazu Kawaguchi is the author of Before Your Memory Fades. Known for emotionally resonant storytelling, their work has found devoted readers across the globe.