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In the streets of Yokohama there is a bar, it's not particularly well known or famous or anything like that. Some might even say it's more of a hole in the wall than anything, rarely occupied with more than just a few customers and more often than not it is quite empty. The bar isn't dingy and run down like one might expect from a place in the more darkly lit parts of town nor is it overly fancy. It's a cozy place that feels warm and inviting despite the lack of windows in the basement it's located that some might have expected would give it a more cavernous feel. The only thing that even announces its presence to the world above the ground is the neon sign that hangs above its entrance, a bright beacon in the darkness that read Lupin.
In the Lupin bar there was only one older gentleman who poured the drinks. That wasn't ever an issue since the bar never was close to full he managed well on his own. He served the drinks and silently observed the many people who came and went, being allowed the great ability to watch a brief moment of their life, as if through a window, as he poured their drinks.
And in the many years he's spent doing so he's seen many windows, some he only glimpses through while others have pulled the curtains apart and allowed him to bathe in the view of what lies beyond, though never has he seen anything past the small square no matter how openly the curtains are held. He knows nothing of what lies in the corners or beyond the closed doors on the other side, only the three walls he can see from outside.
In that time he's poured drinks to those who come once and never again, to those who become regulars and those regulars who disappear to not appear once more where he's left to wonder what could have happened to them beyond the closed doors at the top of the stairs, beyond the bar on the streets above. Left to wonder if they still walk those streets or the streets of a different city or if they walk no streets at all any longer.
Sometimes the curiosity will keep running in his mind years later while the bar is silent but for the purring of the calico cat. Sometimes he used to wonder if he would feel better knowing the answer to such thoughts, even if the truth wasn't the one which he desired? But he doesn't wonder that anymore, because now he knows that knowing is quite worse than the question.
It all started years before. One fateful night not unlike any other the door opened and from the unknown world on the streets above entered two men. But calling them both men would be false, as one was only a young boy in his teens. The other man was not much older, only in his early twenties himself. He had hair in a muted red reminiscent of oxidized wine.
The two sat at the bar and the barman poured them drinks of amber over a perfect sphere of ice like he had to many of those who sat there before. Some may criticize him for pouring the drink for a child but those do not know the streets of Yokohama nor the bar that rests below like a hole in wall. Nor did they see into the eye of the child with dark brown hair, devoid of any light.
Soon a third man joined the two, despite the intelligent eyes beyond the glasses and the dark hair combed to reflect a man beyond his years, the third member of their trio was also only a young man.
The odd trio only grew odder the more the curtains were pulled apart for him to view the three rooms, all so different from the next. Yet despite that, as their visits grew frequent and not a week went by without them coming in and sitting in the same chairs by the bar as he poured them the same amber drink over the perfect sphere, no other group who sat there before nor after ever exuded the same warmth and happiness as those three. Soon he found himself anticipating the next time they would step out of the world above into this haven below as the bar would grow colder and quieter than ever before every night when they would not.
As time went by, weeks turning to months and months becoming years, the rooms beyond the windows only became more and more clear to him. The good man, parent of children who had none, who remained in a status far lower than he could simply because he would not be the hand who'd take someone's breath away. The man of great intelligence, diligent and thorough, his curtains never drawn all the way nor did they open. Last was the child, the one who rose highest of them all yet whose room remained dark, not because the curtains were drawn but for the lack of light in his eye to fill it. The longer he observed the room of a child, one that should have shined brighter than anyone, the more he saw a change in what he glimpsed there. It might be his own wishfulness that he raised a painting before the wall, refusing to see what truthfully lay before him, yet he could see a light emerging from within those three walls. Whatever the case may be, the one thing that the barman could tell was true was the bond between those three men. No matter how odd the trio they were, the friendship that bound them shone with warmth that filled the room.
So he would continue to long for those moments where they would step down into this never changing bubble below and fill it with their warmth. He would continue to pour their drinks, amber over ice, and he would appreciate every moment he had the privilege to gaze beyond the curtains into the window of the room beyond. For a moment, he might have thought that this trio would last forever. But even the best wine will oxidize when exposed to air, a single crack and it all falls apart.
Sometimes he finds himself wondering, looking for the signs, the smallest fractures that must have tinted the glass before the rupture formed. Whenever such thoughts plague his mind he often finds himself reminiscing of the final night of warmth that he observed through those windows. Maybe he already knew then, that it would be the last time he saw those three together?
But alas, he only saw that crack after it had formed, widened irreparably by the elements of the world above. He could only pour the same amber over the same ice as he always does and watch as the three sat in the same chairs as they always do, drink the same drinks yet none of the same warmth would fill the room. And he watched as the crack widened and spread like a spiderweb, a disease, until the frames that bound the three windows together, that were so interwoven through the rooms that he could not separate one without the others, shattered before his eyes.
Beyond that night two of the men would still visit the bar, sitting at the seats they always do and he'd pour them the same drink he always would. But not once did he ever see them together again. Not after that night where the warmth died when they drank the last frigid drink. He never found himself wondering for the why of it all, that much was always obvious as one of their rooms beyond the window would forever remain frozen in time, forever unchanging as a picture. For even as the boy without light and the man beyond his years came and sat in their seat as always, the only thing ever occupying the seat of the good man would be the flowers they'd leave.
And as weeks turned to months and months to years, the warmth of the laughter and chatter from the odd trio never once warmed the bar again. And the barman who had poured their drinks as he witnessed it all through the windows would never pour a drink to be drunk at one seat by his bar. For unlike many times before he knew what fate had befallen the man who sat there beyond the doors at the top of the stairs, above in the ever-changing streets that he would never walk once more.
As the sun rises and falls, the leaves changing colors and the trees withering and new sprouts springing one thing never changed. In the streets of Yokohama there is still a bar, it's neither well known nor famous. Some may even say it's little more than a hole in the wall. Yet beyond those doors, down the stairs, there is a windowless bar that exists as a picture frozen in time. A painting that tells the forgone tales of an odd trio who used to grace the room with a warmth and light that he never can forget. And in this bar is only one older gentlemen who poured the drinks who stood witness to that small miracle.
So if you seek the dimly lit streets of Yokohama, you may find a bright beacon in that darkness. And the name of that warm light from a star long gone reads Lupin.