Kino owns and operates a small bar named Kino. There is a man who frequents the bar who always sits in the same seat, orders the same drinks, reads, pays his bill, and leaves. They only speak when the man is ordering his drinks, and Kino doesn’t even know the man’s name, though he does not see this as an issue.

After college, where Kino was a middle-distance runner, he found a job at a sports equipment company, where he worked for 17 years. He often travelled for work, and once, arriving home a day early, found his wife in their bed, having an affair with his favorite coworker. When he saw them together, he turned around and left. He quit his job the next day and never returned to the apartment.

Kino had an unmarried aunt who always liked him. She owned a coffee shop with a living space above it in an alley behind the Nezu Museum. She had asked him to take over the shop for her when she retired and moved, but at the time, he refused. In the aftermath of his wife’s affair, he called her and asked if he could open a bar there and pay her rent.