From Shadows Chapter 1
"Ugh," Crow groaned, lounging on the couch.
Yusei, Jack and Lise ignored him. Yusei was trying to get his duel disk back up and running. Jack was rocking back and forth on two legs of his chair, trying to keep himself awake. Lise was drawing on the nearest wall with a pencil.
"Ugh," Crow said louder, dragging himself off the couch.
Nobody made any indications to show they had heard him.
"UGH!" Crow practically shouted right next to Yusei's work table.
"What's wrong, Crow?" Yusei sighed. He didn't look up from his work.
"I'm bored! When is Kalin gonna get here?"
"He did say he'd be late, mate," Jack reminded him. He yawned and scratched at the back of his head. "If you want, we can duel to pass the time."
"Not right now. It's too hot to duel, much less move, and I'm bored…" Crow complained in a whiny voice.
"Do you wanna help me paint the wall?" Lise suggested. She put her pencil down and reached for her paintbrushes. "You could put up a red wash first."
"What's a wash?" Crow asked, perking up a bit.
"It's mostly a layer of paint with water as a background."
"No way," Crow groaned and sunk back down to the floor. "That involves moving."
Lise shrugged and went into their pathetically tiny kitchen to grab as much water as she could from the dripping pipes with her bucket. "It's all well and good now, but I can't do anything till I get more water for my paints. We've got time."
"Wait!" Crow sat straight up like he'd been struck with something. "I got it!" He jumped up and ran into the kitchen.
Lise, Yusei and Jack exchanged looks of surprise and uncertainty.
"Should we be concerned?" Yusei finally broke the silence.
"I don't know…" Jack said awkwardly.
"Let's burn things!" Crow announced, coming back in with a pack of matches.
"The fuck did you get those?!" Lise cried, torn between pyromania and the fear of destroying something.
"Kitchen," Crow shrugged. "What should we burn?" He reached for some stray papers on Yusei's work table.
"No! You can't burn those!" Yusei yanked them out of Crow's way.
"Well I can't burn Lise'sksetchbook."
"You're damn right you can't!" Lise screeched, pulling her drawings away from him.
"We could burn the table," Jack suggested.
"You're actually considering it!"
"I'm bored too."
"We can't burn the table!"
"Then do we have some old newspapers nearby? I know you saved a few to put underneath your paintings, Lise."
"Oh yeah, you could burn those," Lise agreed, glad that her work was safe.
"Not you too!" Yusei's mouth dropped open. "Look, we can't burn the table, my papers, or Lise's drawings."
"He's right," Crow sighed. "Never mind…" He pouted and turned to go put the matches back.
"Wait, we can still burn things," Lise said, completely serious. "But we've gotta do it right."
"Uh…there's a right way to burn things?"
Lise nodded. She pointed to Crow. "You get as much paper and dry wood as you can that isn't Yusei's table."
"O…kay."
"Now!"
"Right," Crow pocketed the matches and sped off.
"Um, what about when Kalin gets here?" Jack pointed out.
"He can join us," Lise said passively, waving away his concern.
"Join us in what?"
"You'll see. Yusei and Jack, do you guys know what we can use as sticks?"
"Sticks?" Yusei raised an eyebrow and stared at her. "Are you nuts?"
"And bolts. Can you guys get something that can be used as sticks? Preferably five?"
"Like a wire hangar?" Jack suggested, getting excited. He stood up. "Yeah, we can do that! Let's go!"
"This is so insane," Yusei commented, but he followed Jack. "Hang on," he paused. "What're you going to do?"
"You'll see," Lise winked and strolled down the stairs of their hideout.
/
"Okay," Yusei announced upon their return. "We got what we could, but what're we going to do with all this stuff?"
Lise didn't answer him. She was trying to get the wood and paper Crow had collected to ignite right outside their hideout door.
"Wow, you actually did a good job, Crow," Jack nodded approvingly.
"Don't act so surprised," Crow glared at him and groaned. "I don't know what she's doing. She brought that bag of stuff over there." He pointed to a small blue cloth bag by Lise's foot. "But she won't tell me what's in it."
"It better be good. It's getting dark out," Yusei set the sticks down and sat cross-legged by Lise.
"Yes!" she exclaimed as the papers lit up and caught the wood on fire.
"Hey guys, sorry I'm so late. I got caught up in planning our next gang f- what're you doing?"
Lise picked up a stick and reached into her bag. She put something white on the end and held it out over the fire. "Roasting marshmallows."
"Sweet! Throw me a marshmallow!" Kalin settled down by Yusei and attached the food Lise tossed him to his own stick. "What a great idea. I should leave you guys alone more often."
"Well, Crow did want to burn something," Yusei said, laughing nervously.
"This way we can constructively burn something," Jack smiled.
"No way man," Crow put his marshmallow directly into the flames. "My marshmallow's burning in hell!"
"Dude, that's marshmallow abuse!"
Lise laughed. "It doesn't matter how you want to roast it. I have graham crackers and chocolate too."
"S'mores! Lise, you're brilliant!" Crow grinned jubilantly. He pulled out his burning marshmallow and blew on it until the flames died out. "All right now for the s'more part!"
"It's fucking black!" Jack pointed at the marshmallow dramatically.
"You're really going to eat that?" Yusei curled his lip in disgust.
"I know I said it doesn't matter, but that looks cancerous," Lise remarked, watching Crow mash the marshmallow between the graham crackers and chocolate. "Martha was on board with the s'mores, but I think she'd change her mind if she saw what you were doing to the marshmallows."
Kalin chuckled and lit his marshmallow on fire. "Aw, just let him eat it the way he likes. We'll have to thank Martha the next time we see her."
"Absolutely," Yusei agreed. He finished putting his s'more together and bit into it. "Holy shit this is good. Why haven't we done this before?"
"We didn't have all this stuff before. Martha snagged it at the market," Lise explained. "All the leftovers will go to the kids at her orphanage."
"Great idea," Crow said with his mouth full, putting one sticky thumb up.