“Hey, where are you from?”

They say there are bars that locals visit and bars they don’t, and “Bar Aijin” on Shinsekai Road is the latter. It’s a mysterious bar with a sort of intimidation that requires obscene amounts of alcohol to overcome.
This is a story about a transfer student who vanished as suddenly as she came and the bar that did the same.

One day a young girl transferred to the school in Nishiura. She was tall and vibrant with a city-girl vibe that her female classmates admired from a distance while her male classmates approached without hesitation and with flaring curiosity.

Cheerful and friendly, the transfer student invited the boys to her place, and they followed her to the alleyway of the Nishiura bar street. “It’s here,” she’d say as she opened the door and entered the bar.
As they entered, her mother came down the stairs, disheveled and in pajamas, with a cigarette hanging from her lips as she laid out some coke and chocolate for the kids.

Sitting there in the bar, reeking of tobacco and alcohol, the transfer student shared her tales of the big city to the boys who were half listening, half contemplating this experience as one step towards adulthood.

Summer rolled around and everyone forgot about the transfer student until they returned to school in the fall to learn that she had left Nishiura.

Without saying goodbye to anyone she was gone just as suddenly as she had once arrived. Some of the boys couldn’t let go of their curiosity and went to visit the bar where she lived to find a new sign that read “Bar Aijin”. I wonder what she’s doing these days...