“Here it is,” Darren said.
The locker was still piled up full of boxes.
Sakiko looked at the boxes.
“Do you know what this is from?” Sakiko asked.
“No? What?” Yuki said.
“This is from that bookstore called ‘Grandpa’s Books.’ Its all leather bound books that are sold to the collectors. This must be his overflow.”
“This will make excellent barricade building material,” Darren said.
Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko loaded up cartloads of the boxes of books. They tracked them across the storage building and piled them at one door and then the other. The piles were four boxes deep, and three boxes wide and as tall as the door was. The piles made it hard to push the cart past the piles of boxes.
Chapter 17
Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko walked to the overhead garage doors. Darren studied the garage doors and then the metal door to its side.
“The weak point is these doors.” Darren said, “Right now they have a metal bar going into a little slot here that will keep the door down. If we can get a lock or something, we can lock them, but there’s no way to prevent someone breaking it apart with an ax or something.”
“The man door has a slot for a piece of lumber,” Darren said and looked to the side.
In a corner by the door was a large piece of lumber. Darren picked it up and put it in the barricade.
“One door secured,” Yuki said.
Darren looked at the big overhead doors.
“So the doors are sufficiently locked, right?” Yuki asked.
“They’ll keep the thieves looking for an easy score, but not wanting to use a lot of effort in their attempt,” Darren said.
“Could we pile boxes and stuff in front of the doors?” Yuki asked.
“We could.” Darren said, “But it’ll only slow down the invaders.”
“Let’s brace the door, plug the rollers. Whatever. Then open up some of these lockers and see if we can get some stuff to use to secure these doors.” Yuki said.
Darren nodded and walked up to the first locker that he saw. Using the knowledge from before, Darren started to pry at the door frame. After a few minutes, Darren slid the door up.
The locker was small and only partially full. Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko looked around at the boxes and opened a few of them.
“Nick-nacks,” Yuki said.
“I got stuffed animals in this one,” Sakiko said.
“You know what,” Darren said, “Lets pile stuff in front of the doors.”
“You said that it wouldn’t be perfect,” Sakiko said.
“So what. If someone is that desperate enough to get in here to smash apart a door and then to push a large pile of crap out of the way, then he’s gonna find a way in no matter what we do. But he/ll be creating so much racket that we’ll know he’s coming, then we can go out another door,”
“A door that we just piled boxes in front of,” Sakiko said.
“The piles of crap buys us time to move those boxes of crap out of the way and for us to make our way out of here.”
“I like it, let’s do it,” Yuki said.
Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko worked late into the night moving boxes and piling it into a large pile in front of the garage door. Darren thought he could still get more stuff on the heap, but if he got much more, then he wouldn’t be able to access the bathroom. When they were done, they were too tired to do anything else. They dragged themselves back to the storage unit to sleep for the night.
The next day, Darren leaned against the wall. In his hands were a small bowl of porridge that Yuki had made. He wore only his boxers. Sakiko leaned against his shoulder, still asleep. She was wearing her panties and a t-shirt.
Yuki walked to Darren holding a bowl for Sakiko. Yuki was dressed in a tank top and short shorts. Darren was trying not to stare at her.
Sakiko opened one eye, then closed it again. She burrowed her way closer against Darren.
“Give me five more minutes.” Sakiko said, “I slept poorly, and Darren is comfy.”
“That’s fine,” Yuki said, and she walked up and sat beside Darren.
“I just realized something,” Darren said.
“What?” Yuki said.
“I just realized how little I know about my dad,” Darren said.
“What do you mean?” Yuki said.
“He’s been over here for six years.” Darren said, “And friends with your dad for five them?”
“Something like that,” Yuki said.
“After my dad divorced my mom and moved,” Darren said, “I hadn’t seen him in person at all. I only talked to him over the Internet maybe a dozen times. I’ve been living here a year, but my dad works too much. Some months, I only see him a few times for a few meals.”
“That is sad.” Sakiko said, “My parents are nature photographers and always jetting to exotic locations, leaving me here to study. But at least I saw them regularly.”
“Exactly,” Darren said.
“What brought up those thoughts?” Sakiko asked.
“I realized that I might never get to know him very well.” Darren said, “That I might have missed my chance.”
“For one.” Yuki said, “Your dad has embraced the Japanese culture. I personally think he was born into the wrong culture.”
“What does the term Gaijin mean?” Darren asked, “You guys keep calling me one, and I don’t understand.”
“A Gaijin is anyone that’s not Japanese,” Yuki said.
“Is it bad being a Gaijin?” Darren asked.
“You’re not Japanese.” Yuki said, “You will never be Japanese, even if you embrace our ways as much as your dad has. It still won’t make you Japanese.”
“So that means I’m a Gaijin.”
“Yes,” Yuki said.
“There are three types of Gaijin’s,” Sakiko said.
“Three?”
“Yes,” Yuki said, “you can embrace the Japanese culture, you can become Japanese in everything, but name. It is hard, but you will make some good friends like you dad has.”
“Or?” Darren said.
“Embrace being a Gaijin.” Sakiko said, “Its harder in some ways, and you’ll make some people angry at you for being so silly.”
“Or?” Darren said.
“Reject being anything, be friends with other Gaijin and then when you leave Japan, whenever that is, you won’t have made a single Japanese friend.”
“So those are the same choices my dad had to make as well?”
“Yes, but most people make them unconsciously. Just as I’m sure, you have too.”
“The first one.”
Yuki nodded, “We’ll see.”
Sakiko kissed Darren on the cheek and got up. She sauntered over to the pot and dished her out a bowl of food.
“My body hurts today,” Sakiko said.
“Well.” Darren said, “We have more to do today.”
“What’s the plan?” Sakiko said.
“I want to go through some of the other lockers.” Darren said, “See if there’s anything else that we can use.”
Sakiko nodded.
For three days, Darren, Yuki, and Sakiko worked around the storage unit. They broke into lockers and dug through the contents. Darren didn’t have anyplace to put the stuff, so he moved things out of the way. Unfortunately, they didn’t find stashes of money or weapons. Most items they found were baby pictures, furniture, and other useless things.
The first day, they had heard no signs of life from the outside world. They felt a few aftershocks, but nothing to even suggest that there was an outside world.
Sometime during the middle of the second day, gunshots rang out from around the building. The metallic crunch of a car crash echoed through the building as it shook from the impact.
For the day, more and more noise and chaos could be heard from the other side of the brick walls. The chaos rose and sank like waves in the ocean.