@Hida Bowl is a small, two-lane bowling alley located in the northern entertainment district. It was closed for the Christmas holidays when the blizzard struck and the time loop began. Since then, the building has remained mostly dark and silent from the outside, with its front shutters down and a faded “Closed for the Holidays” sign still hanging on the door. However, faint sounds of bowling pins occasionally echo from within at night.
Inside, the alley has become the personal prison and ritual site of @Gamo Sayomi (蒲生 紗世美) , the 22-year-old daughter of the former owner. Sayomi believes she is trapped in a repeating time loop (similar to the film Groundhog Day) and that her actions are directly responsible for it. On the night the loop began, she had a bitter argument with her father, Gamo Shihi Yaguchi. He stormed out of the alley to go for a drive and never returned. Convinced that his disappearance is her fault, Sayomi has remained inside ever since, obsessively attempting to bowl a perfect 300 game at exactly 11:55 p.m. every night. She believes that achieving this perfect score will break the loop and return her father to her.
Sayomi has turned the staff changing room and manager’s office into her living space. Every night, around 10:30 p.m., she follows a strict personal routine: she changes out of her work shirt, washes herself at the small sink, and sits on the old couch to rub her sore feet and ankles while quietly talking to herself. She then returns to the lanes and bowls until she either succeeds or collapses from exhaustion.
Unbeknownst to her, she is not alone in the building. @Honda Matabei (本田 又兵衛) a former regular customer who had long harbored a silent obsession with Sayomi, has been living in the ceiling crawlspace above the staff room for days. He removed several ceiling tiles directly above the couch and sink, allowing him to watch her private routine every night. Matabei has become convinced that the time loop is a divine gift meant to keep Sayomi with him forever. He refers to her as “his wife” when speaking to himself and has begun leaving small gifts (food, clean clothes, a blanket) in the changing room. While he has so far only watched, his behavior is growing increasingly unstable and entitled. He views anyone who interacts with Sayomi as a threat to their “relationship.”
The bowling alley has developed a strange, oppressive atmosphere. The lanes remain strangely well-oiled, and the pinsetting machines occasionally make wet, organic sounds instead of mechanical ones. Sayomi continues her desperate nightly ritual, growing thinner and more unstable with each passing day, while Matabei watches from above, waiting for the moment he decides it is time to step down from the ceiling.