The Satō family has sold tools in Yomiyama since 1923, when Kazuo’s grandfather opened the shop with a single crate of American nails salvaged from the old mine railway. Three generations of mountain winters taught them one truth: when the snow comes, people need things that cut, bind, burn, or hold the dark at bay.
In normal years the store was quiet—farmers buying chainsaw chain, old women picking out clothespins, kids begging for fireworks in summer. When the cheese money started flowing in the late 70s, business boomed: new power tools, generators, even a few colour TVs for the front window. Then December 1987 arrived and never left.
Kazuo still opens at 8:30 every “morning,” sweeping the step that no one else bothers to clear. He never raised prices, never turned anyone away, and never asked why someone needed thirty metres of chain and a lock big enough for a bear. Noriko counts coins with the same calm she used to count festival takings. Ayumi sharpens blades until the whetstone sings, and Daiki hauls fifty-kilogram salt bags like they weigh nothing, because strong backs are useful when the world ends.
The shop has become the village’s unspoken armoury. People line up for nails to board windows, salt to lay across thresholds, kerosene because the power might die for good. No one talks about what the tools are really for, and the Satōs don’t ask. They simply wrap each purchase in old newspaper, tie it with perfect bowline knots, and say the same thing every time:
“Be careful out there.
And come back if you need more.”
Some customers never do.