Reiko opened Kurohi in 1968 with her late husband Sone Takeshi, using his severance pay from the magnesium mine. Takeshi died in ’71 (roof collapse in the Number 3 tunnel), leaving 28-year-old Reiko widowed with a five-year-old daughter and a half-finished bar. She finished the bar anyway, named it “Black Spout” because “that’s where all the village’s troubles end up pouring out eventually.”
Her daughter, Sone Ayako, escaped the mountain the first chance she got: scholarship to Nagoya University, then residency in Boston. Now a cardiologist in Massachusetts who wires money every month but hasn’t come home in eight years.
The only other permanent fixture is “Gangare” Tatsumi (外谷 辰巳, 64), a grizzled ex-bōsōzoku turned long-haul trucker who still rides a dented Kawasaki 750 up the valley when the road allows. Tatsumi was Takeshi’s best friend and carried his body out of the mine that day. He’s been in love with Reiko for thirty-five years, proposed twice (once drunk, once sober), and got told both times, “Don’t be stupid, you old crow.” He still shows up every night, parks his bike under the eaves, keeps his mirrored sunglasses on indoors, and curses fluently at anyone who looks at Reiko the wrong way.
Regulars say the black cheese started as a joke: Reiko tried charcoal-curing it after a bad batch turned grey. People complained it tasted like ash. She told them life tastes like ash, eat it anyway. Now nobody orders anything else.
On quiet nights you can hear Reiko and Gangare arguing behind the counter about the same things they argued about in 1972, voices low and rough like gravel under tires. When the first big snow falls and the road closes, the red lantern stays lit 24 hours a day. That’s how you know Kurohi is still open, and the village is still alive, for now.