CHAPTER 06

"Bacon."

Two teens could be seen arguing at the section of a mall that sold canned livestock produce. The female had mid length dark brown hair that she let loose at her shoulders and wore a red checkered baggy shirt and ripped jeans while the object of her fervent argument wore a plain t-shirt and shorts with the shadows of a tattoo creeping out of the short sleeves of his shirt. He had the standard dark hair and brown eyes. 

Different from the girl, he had a packet of eggs as opposed to the bacon his partner oh so fervently wished for. 

The two of them had attracted a small crowd of amused shoppers as neither wanted to back down from their choice. Seeing as how her partner was still refusing her simple wish, she huffed and made to grab the bacon only for her wrist to be tightly held to the point that she was having trouble even twitching it. 

"Eggs." The boy calmly said and directed his sight to the packet of eggs in his hands and nodded his head in assurance. 

"Why eggs, Trist? You know I don't like them! We should go with bacon." She stamped her foot as bore her eyes into that of the teen in hopes of intimidating him to acquiesce to her demands but he just stared back at her blankly, and if not for the fact that she had known him for a long time, she would have been led to believe that his blank stare was a sarcastic one. 

They both continued their stare down until she was forced to give up as there was just no way she could win against him and his dead eyes. 

"Too much bacon, Malia." Was all he said as he put down the eggs inside their trolley and pushed it to another section of the mall. 

"What do you mean 'too much bacon'? How can someone have too much bacon? It's supposed to be the staple food for us considering who and what we are." She groaned and walked behind Tristan while her eyes darted left and right looking for anything that might catch her eye. She naturally caught the eyes of a handful of boys and a few girls but she didn't pay attention to them as she was more focused on what she wanted Tristan to buy for her to complete whatever meal it was that they wanted to cook. 

"Corn?" Tristan paused for a moment in thought before nodding his head at her suggestion and focused back on getting their necessities while she picked whatever she thought was necessary. It was a synergy between them that made it harmonious despite their differences. 

"Ham? No? Well, figured it wouldn't hurt to try." She kept the ham back with a little pouting in her tone, not that he cared in the very least. 

Even if he wouldn't never say it to anyone, Malia was quite a handful and sometimes he wondered why it was virtually impossible to find a good reason to hate her. They were that joined at the hip. 

They continued walking around the mall, looking for anything they personally needed alongside their foodstuffs. "Hey, I think we should get more knives. Who knows when we'll need 'em." She said offhandedly and Tristan next to her hummed with a nod of his head. 

Being the proactive one, Malia took it upon herself to browse through the numerous shelves for anything that caught her fancy which left Tristan just pushing his trolley around. 

"You know we're going clothes shopping next, right?" Tristan grunted at the reminder but his face remained as blank as possible with a little imperceptible twitch here and there. 

"You look dead, you know that right? I mean, it's not like a new look for you but would you mind, I don't know, livening yourself up more? I mean it's shopping. It's supposed to be a fun and refreshing activity."

He glared at the outspoken girl who wouldn't hesitate to rip out someone's throat talk about having fun while shopping, not knowing that it was because of her that he was almost fed up with it. Not for the fact that she'd make him carry the bags, because he mostly doesn't, but for the fact that she could be quite… tenacious when it came to things she likes. Though Satomi gave them more than enough money to tide the next few months over, Malia wouldn't hesitate to spend it all just for a short she liked, mostly because she knew she could strong arm the no-nonsense Alpha into giving her more. 

He looked at the watch strapped to his wrist and let out a pitiful wince when he realized it was just 11:34am, which was quite early all things considered. 

"Let's just get this over with." This was the most worded sentence he had spoken throughout the day. 

"Now that's the spirit." Malia patted him on the back and continued on her part of the journey which was picking up stuff that she thought would benefit them while Tristan would judge of its true worth. 

… 

"That would be $116.19." Paying in cash, they took what they bought in three big bags and made their way to a Toyota Prius that was parked among the sea of automobiles in the parking lot. 

"Oh, I forgot. Devonford Prep is having a match against Beacon Hills and Lori says we're coming." Malia said as they unloaded their bags inside the boot. "Brett will obviously be playing so it's a win for them, don't know why she insisted on us watching."

"Hey losers." An obnoxious shout drew the attention of the two but only made one scowl as they saw who it was. Though they did not personally know him, not a lot of people owned a Porsche around these parts. 

A truck parked at the side of the Porsche and from it jumped out a few boys who proudly wore the Beacon Hills jackets. A young smug boy and girl came out from the Porsche with the former eyeing Malia while the latter looked as if nothing was more important than her nails. 

"Great. A pack of jocks." Malia rolled her eyes and would normally have bared her proverbial fangs at them but didn't in consideration of the boy by her side. While he couldn't care less if she roughed up a few people here and there, he was easily irritated and didn't quite know when to back off once he got off. 

They ignored the group of laughing adolescent normies who took it upon themselves to taunt anybody who passed and got in their car. "Annoying."

"Well they're specifically built that way. They are higher up the food chain so they get to pick on those lower down." Malia said and kicked the car into ignition while Tristan just laid back and let her drive them to their next location. 

Malia hummed to the tune that played out while Tristan just bopped his head along. The silence was something that they'd grown up being accustomed to. Despite Malia being quite a loud person, Tristan was the very opposite and even among the differences, they were able to find a common ground that neither took advantage of. The silence was one of them. 

They knew much about each other than they would have been comfortable with if it were someone else. They being from the same side of the veil also helped a lot despite their rocky start. Sometimes Tristan would burst into spontaneous low laughs as he remembered some of their days back in the woods when they would fight each other. Though Malia could just tear him apart, she somehow didn't make that decision but settled for giving him the scariest growl she could muster and also the bites. Damn those bites did hurt. 

It was still the same even now as they would sometimes bicker and though Tristan always did never say much, Malia understood all the ticks he had. All of them. 

The number of times he had to stop Malia from killing people who pissed her off were quite numerous as the young girl's aversion to taking a life was minute at best and nonexistent at least. That also did in no way insinuate that she was the only bloodthirsty one among their two. He was just the one who was less to react. His pissed off point was about the same as Malia's but he just lacked the necessary energy to show it most of the time. 

"We're here." Her voice woke him up from his half asleep state with a groan as he found that the car was packed facing a boutique. 

"Why again?" He asked not really seeing why they had to spend the next few hours just browsing through clothes while only a few minutes for paying. 

"Because we need new clothes. You might not care much since you pretty much sleep in every day but I do. Your wardrobe is lacking in seasons and style." She directly quoted Lori, the girl who she'd taught her most of the things she knew about being a girl. It was one of the most irritating and embarrassing moments of her life but she soldiered on as she knew how important it was. 

From hygiene to fashion, from fashion to sensuality, from sensuality to romance and everything else in between. Satomi's pack didn't huddle up every time as they had things to do and lives to live but they made sure to stay in constant contact with each other in case one needed help or in case of hunters, though neither of them have met the fabled hunters so they were in the clear for now. 

"Lori?"

Malia groaned because she knew how jackshit she was at lying and nodded but with a determined gaze that slightly started breaking as she started speaking. "She said you need to look more oomph. Something about getting girls to like you more and you trying to make friends outside of those from the pack."

One of Tristan's eyes opened up slowly as a part of the sentence caught his attention. "Girls?"

"Hey don't look at me like that, I wasn't the one who said it." Malia raised her hand in defense at his slightly accusatory stare. 

Tristan let out a long sigh before he started speaking in a very slow and low tone. "Apart from the obvious fact that you'll tear any girl's necks off if they tried getting too close to me, I don't really see the need for that. And besides, it's not like you're ever going anywhere without me tagging along anyway." He knew exactly what it was she wanted to hear and despite their connection with each other, Malia could get rather paranoid about unimportant matters. 

"Exactly." She beamed up before opening the doors in an all too good mood for some light shopping. "Come on, let's go. The clothes aren't going to shop themselves if we stay in the car all day." She said to him while peeking her head through the window because he remained sitting even when she got out. "And remember that we also have a game to catch up to this evening."

The groan inside the car intensified as she said that before he forced himself out of the seat. 

"Come on, smile a bit will'ya. I don't think people frown and brood like that when going shopping. I can't imagine another girl handling all that brood and dead eyes like I can so you should always be thankful you have me around." Even though he wanted to try and refute what she said, his mouth just wouldn't open because of a few reasons other than she was right. 

Sure he'd learned how to express himself with gestures such as smiles and frowns from Brett but character was not something he could learn from someone else, let alone a werewolf. And she wasn't all that wrong when she said she couldn't imagine a girl taking a liking to him as he was the same. 

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