@Satō Sake & Tobacco - Closed was a small, unassuming family-run shop that stood two blocks behind the police box in Yomiyama’s older commercial row. Opened in the mid-1950s by the grandfather of the last owner, it sold sake, shōchū, cigarettes, tobacco pipes, lighters, rolling papers, and a small selection of daily sundries (matches, newspapers, cheap snacks). In its heyday it was a quiet neighbourhood fixture—miners stopped in after shifts, salarymen grabbed a pack on the way home, and kids bought candy from the counter. The shop had a single wooden signboard with faded red kanji, a glass display case of cigarette brands, and a small back room used for storage.
The area around it became a notorious hangout for young yakuza in their shady business suits (no tie, expensive watches and chains) or leather attire with pompadours for lower members. Vans parked outside, girls on arms, public drinking spilling onto the street—fights broke out weekly, knives flashing, bottles smashing. Police tried repeatedly to break up the chaos and arrest for drunkenness, but it always ended in injuries to officers and deep frustration. The police chief @Morita Takayuki (森田 隆之) once warned: “One day if a tragedy hits this town, this place and all the yakuza will be the first to go.” His words proved prophetic—the yakuza who hung out there were among the earliest casualties in the loop, turning into shibito quickly.
The shop closed permanently in late 1987 when the blizzard struck and the loop began. The owner, Satō Hiroshi (佐藤 宏), 62, simply never reopened after one night. Locals say he was last seen locking up at 8 p.m. on December 23, carrying a crate of sake bottles toward the alley behind the building. His wife and two teenage sons left town shortly before the snow became impassable. The shop has remained shuttered ever since, windows boarded from the inside, the sign still hanging crookedly.
The shop also had ties to a back-alley doctor @Anzai Tatsuo (安西 達夫) working out of the nearby @Pharmacy “Yakkyoku Mori” (薬局 森) The doctor patched up yakuza wounds in secret for cash, no questions asked. Since the loop, the pharmacy remains open, but the doctor has grown wary of the yakuza's fate.
From the alley, the shop looks like a forgotten relic: single-storey wooden structure with peeling green paint, a rusted metal awning over the entrance, and a faded red sign reading 佐藤酒煙草店 in old-style kanji. Snow has drifted against the door and filled the window display, where rows of cigarette packs and sake bottles are still visible behind cracked glass, labels curling from moisture. A small chalk bear-trap symbol is drawn on the side wall near the coal-cellar door—faint, but deliberately placed. The alley itself is narrow, snow piled high on both sides, with no footprints leading to or from the shop except a single set that stops abruptly halfway to the door. At night the signboard is barely visible, but a thin sliver of light leaks from the coal-cellar entrance whenever someone is inside.
The shop’s back alley coal cellar contains the hidden staircase that descends to the underground mahjong den “Kuroi-Yume,” run by the Yamaoroshi-gumi. The steel door is unmarked except for that faded chalk bear-trap symbol, a Yamaoroshi calling card.
Satō Hiroshi was not part of the yakuza, but he allowed the gang to use the cellar as a discreet entrance for years in exchange for protection and occasional “gifts” of cash. He kept the arrangement secret even from his family.
After the loop started, Hiroshi disappeared the same night he carried that last crate of sake bottles down the cellar stairs. No one knows if he went willingly, was taken, or simply walked into the den and never came back up.
The shop is one of the few places in town that remains completely untouched—no lights on, no one entering or leaving. Yet the chalk bear-trap symbol is always fresh, redrawn in white chalk every morning before dawn.
The Satō Sake & Tobacco shop is the silent gateway to the Yamaoroshi-gumi’s underworld. It looks abandoned, but the bear-trap mark on the wall says otherwise