Nejly

“So I ask you never to forget one thing. You are my wife, and if life becomes too hard for you as my wife, I want you to leave me. “You don’t have to stay by me as a nurse. If I am no good as a husband, then I want you to leave me. All I ask is that you can do what you can as my wife. We are husband and wife after all. Even if I lose my memory, I want to be together as husband and wife. I cannot stand the idea of us staying together only out of sympathy. “This is something I cannot say to your face, so I wrote it in a letter.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“The present hadn’t changed—but those two people had. Both Kohtake and Hirai returned to the present with a changed heart.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“it would be painful for him to see the unhappy face of someone he loved? So why don’t you smile every day so that your father can smile from his box? Our smiles allow him to smile. Our happiness allows your father to be happy in his box.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“It wasn't until later that she learned he could barely read or write. When she found it, she asked him how he managed to read all the long letters she wrote to him. Apparently, he just allowed his eyes to wander over them. Then he just wrote in his reply the vague impression he got from his gazing. But with the last letter, after casting his eyes over it, he was overcome with a feeling that he had missed something important. He read it word for word while asking different people to tell him what the words meant - hence the long time it took to reply.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold