Kimi no Shiawase wo Negatteita 3 (I Wish You Happiness 3)

Part 2

The next day, on Monday, after spending the day feeling restless, I came home after turning down an invitation from a colleague and was sitting on the floor in front of my phone in the living room.

The time is now 20:00. It might be a little early. What's a little early is to call Ren.

After consulting with Hisamitsu, I decided to take the courage to call him, but I was not ready and could not call him last night.

I was determined to make the call tonight, but Ren is a busy man. He might still be at work at 20 o'clock.

That was just an excuse. I'm a stubborn person, and I always try to put it off for some reason or another.

Maybe I'll make some coffee.

Less than a minute after I sat upright, I got up and headed for the kitchen. I decided to make a cup of coffee, chose to drip it instead of instant to slowly to pass the time.

I searched on my phone for the best way to make coffee and found paper drip, flannel drip, and siphon methods.

I thought it would be easy to just pour hot water into a cup of coffee, but I heard that there is a procedure to make good coffee.

It says to use a pot with a narrow spout and pour hot water little by little, but unfortunately I only have a regular kettle at home.

It says the proper temperature is 85 to 90 degrees Celsius, but I don't have a thermometer, so I set up in front of the stove, hoping to turn off the heat before it boils.

Soon after, the kettle started to make a sizzling sound, so I took it off the heat and poured the hot water directly.

"Oh, no."

It was written that it was not good to pour it, but I already did, and the overflowing water fell into the cup of coffee powder.

"What should I do with this"

I don't want to drink it like this, the powder looks very rough.

So, after thinking about it, I prepared a bowl, transferred the coffee in the cup, and put it back in the filter again.

I tried pouring hot water into the filter, but it was impossible to do so without getting hot water on the filter, wasn't it?

No matter how I tried, the hot water always ended up on the filter.

The resulting coffee was somewhat tepid and thin.

I drank it up with a delicate feeling, and then re-filled it with instant coffee, which tasted the same even if it was made by someone who was not very good at it.

"Mmm, mmm, ahh."

I checked my throat and took a sip of the café au lait to quench my thirst.

This was my third cup of coffee, after the failed drip coffee and the second cup of instant coffee.

Obviously, I'd had too much to drink, but I was so thirsty I couldn't help it.

I was starting to worry about my stomach, so I made myself a café au lait for the third cup.

In my hand, I have a memo with bullet points of what I want to tell Ren.

This is actually the second memo I've written.

The first one became soggy as I rewrote it over and over again, so I discarded it.

"Well..."

I took a deep breath and called up Ren's number from the address on my phone.

All I had to do was press the call button, but when I saw the word "Ren", my fingers started to shake.