Chapter 21: CHAPTER 20
[Allison Argent POV]
As far as Allison Argent was concerned, her new school experience wasn't that bad which was heavily attributed to her spending time with Malia.
If she was to be perfectly honest, Allison prided herself in being able to read people, or at least was adept at picking up honest intentions… that was until she met Malia.
If she were to make an evaluation of Malia, it was that the girl was brash, crude, quite dumb academically and quick to resort to violence to get her thoughts through. When everyone of these behaviors were viewed from an objective point of view, the conclusion they would arrive at was that the girl known as Malia Tate was a very simple girl.
She was as easy to read like a book and also as easily misunderstood.
They haven't had that much time to really hang out but that just made Allison look forward to when they did. While Allison herself was normally quite shy and reserved, she always found herself being swept along Malia's flow every single time the girl was around.
She refused to comment on Tristan mainly because the signals she was getting from him were all over the place.
More reserved than her, Tristan seemed like the type to always distance himself if the crowd got too big or the atmosphere got too warm.
Like he would just up and leave if the surrounding got a little bubbly or if there was something attention grabbing. It was like he abhorred the very idea of socialization and fun.
She still hadn't gotten to ask them about their relationship with each other since it was clear that they were very close to each other… like very close. It didn't have an ambiguous air but a natural one as if they were siblings.
'Maybe cousins? Could be.' She mulled over the fact as she made her way to her French class only to bump into somebody while coming down the stairs and she would have fallen down if the person bumped into hadn't caught her as quick as he did.
"I'm so sorry. Should've watched where I-I was goin…"
Her eyes widened at the close proximity and from the slight panic across the boy's face as he let her go, so did she.
"I was just trying to stop you from falling."
"Yeah, no. I perfectly understand." She waved her hands to stop him from trying to explain himself as she was also at fault for not paying attention.
They both stood there awkwardly, not knowing what else to say to the other party
"…"
"Um, I should get going…"
"Yeah, me too. I have class right now, so…"
"Yeah, me too."
They both took an awkward step to give each other passage only to block themselves which increased the awkwardness of the situation but thankfully the boy just nodded at her and took an extra step before walking past her.
"Well, that was awkward." Allison said to no one in particular.
…
[Malia Tate POV]
She was seriously beginning to wonder if this was some kind of torture technique that Satomi had been concocting for years in order to use against her after the old Alpha had gotten enough of her rebelling.
School was not fun at all!
Now she was absolutely sure that the only reason why people fondly reminisce about their school life was either due to the party, the sports, or when they were having fun with their friends. She was damn sure no one actually missed the main act of learning.
And not to mention the boring people that swarmed the halls on a daily basis. She preferred wood hiking any day over those.
She failed to realize the presence of another person near her on her lab table only for the person to call out her attention.
"Hey, um, I see we're grouped for this exercise. Crazy coincidence huh?"
She finally observed who the person that turned out to be her lab partner was only to face someone that just looked like he was going to bore the hell out of day.
"My name's Stiles." He extended his hand for a shake but couldn't decide if he wanted a shake or a bump as his fist just changed motions.
Malia just stared at Stiles in a dumbfounded way as he made the most awkward expression of someone that had no clue on what to do that Malia had ever seen.
"Just gonna ignore me, cool." He just sighed and whispered under his breath not having the foggiest idea that Malia heard him as clear as day.
The subject on this roster's hour was chemistry experiments featuring titration, a simple experiment that was done to observe the level of concentration of an acid-base solution using analytical methods.
Remembering why she was in this class in the first place and the little promise to Satomi and Joanne about enjoying high school as much as she could while also trying to put in a little bit of effort, she mentally cursed her lack of academic intelligence which ended in knowing how to read and write, basic sums and things you ACTUALLY need in everyday life
'I'm requesting an allowance raise by month's end.' She was going to make Satomi pay, literally, for putting her through this.
Swallowing the bitter pill in her mouth, she glanced at the Stall? Stym? Stills? Yes, Stills, and opened her mouth for the first time since entering this lab room. "Hey, Stills, got any idea what this is all about?"
Reacting in a way that was too out of proportion that would have been perceived as over exaggeration, Stiles whipped his head to face Malia and dumbly stared in shock that she actually wanted a conversation with him.
Seeing him blankly staring at her, she had to forcefully resist to verbally lash out at him and brought her finger between them and when she was sure she had gotten his attention, she pointed it at their table and then the board where a few things were scribbled on.
That motion of Malia's succeeded in snapping Stiles back to reality which made him cough in hollow embarrassment. "Yes. Yes. The experiment. It's um…"
Not understanding why he was fidgeting and slowly resolving herself to sleep through the class if he turned out as dumb as she was or anywhere near her level, Malia nodded at him and silently prodded him to continue.
"Haha, sorry about that. My name is Stiles, Stilinski." Stiles took another approach after managing to get his stupid emotions in check when a beautiful hot girl started talking to him. 'I'm not Scott. Get your cool together.'
"Malia." Malia replied succinctly.
"Right. So titration is basically just measuring how concentrated the given acid-base solution is." Stiles started slow and gave the most basic explanation he knew because her question suggested that that was her level of understanding.
"It's not as complicated as all these test tubes and flasks make it seem." Getting into his comfortable zone, he scooted a little closer and showed Malia a diagram presentation of the assignment they were about to do.
"Honestly, what you need to first take note of is which liquid goes in which conical flask or tube, that way all you need to do once you start your experiment is just basic addition and subtraction and tabulating your results." He slowly explained.
Malia, listening to Stiles' explanation, looked at the picture he was showing her and memorized the way they were set up only to find out she didn't know which liquid does what.
"What about these um, equations? Any way to tell which is acid or base, or even differentiate the liquids?" Since she had nothing to do anyway, it wouldn't hurt to pick a few things up and as she recently learned, students with too low grades were held a year back while those who passed moved on ahead… She didn't like to think along that avenue.
As if expecting that question and also confirming that his hypothesis was correct and that she probably wasn't that smart, like at all, he pushed himself out of his comfort zone and tried making it clear to her as much as he can. Explaining easy things to dumb people was very hard after all.
"Well, the acid-base solutions are usually labeled so you don't need to worry about identifying them for now. Throw in some indicator, this little guy here, and all you just have to do is tap it until the base, this one, changes color uniformly. There are a few exceptions but that's just the basics to tide you over till the topic advances." Finishing his explanation, he took in deep breaths and then a little bit of awkward stutter as he realized what he had just done.
'I didn't flip it, right? I mean, she asked in the first place… right?'
Malia put her fingers on chin and scrunched her eyes as she contemplated everything he explained to her, the part she understood, before nodding as she committed it to memory. Maybe she'll surprise Tristan by teaching him something he didn't know.
"Got all that?" Stiles' exterior remained calm but his mind was doing inordinate acrobatic flips as he waited for her answer, which he viewed as very important. After all this would mean that he didn't have any problems talking to hot girls and it was something else. Maybe there was a reason Lydia had been ignoring him for years now.
Oblivious to Stiles, his nervousness was clear as day to Malia, even without her senses, she could clearly see how fast he was tapping his leg against the floor, and he reeked of desperation.
'Why do I feel like I just got myself into some weird cringe drama?'
Betraying her line of thoughts, she smiled at Stiles and gave him his due thanks. "Yeah, thanks a lot. You just made my day a little bearable."
Hearing what she said, Stiles looked around, urgently looking for someone he could fist bump at this very moment!
Unfortunately he couldn't just switch personality and whoop out in the middle of class since he wanted to maintain whatever image Malia had of him.
"Okay class, settle down." The chemistry teacher, Adrian Harris, Stiles' least favorite teacher in Beacon Hills stepped inside the class, but not before Scott rushed in and took the vacant table at the back while looking weirdly at Stiles, who was signaling him something with his hands behind his back that he didn't understand, and Malia Tate, the new girl that had the smell of nature and something else that he didn't know what it was yet. He ignored them and shared a table with Greenburg.
"So, um, Malia, um, do you play lacrosse- I mean, do you want to watch me play lacrosse?" He cursed fervently at himself for ruining the great start he had making Malia give him a weird look.
"You play?" It wasn't a question of interest but rather a reflexive one, not that poor Stiles could tell the difference.
"Yeah, I do… during practice… maybe in a real game soon… I mean it's never happened before, but it can happen, right?" His voice dropped a bit as he remembered that he was now the only one warming the bench since Scott made first-line.
"Mr. Stilinski, why am I under the false impression that you'll for once not tempt my ire, especially when not in effective talking range with your second half?" Mr. Harris called to Stiles as he once again heard the unmistakable headache-inducing pitch of the boy's soundbox.
"My bad." Not willing to cause a scene, he relented without making one of his famous rebuttals at Mr. Harris' chiding.
At his side, Malia just tried her best to listen to whatever the teacher said and ignore the emotional wreck that was Stiles by her side.
It was bad enough that the guy was oozing off weird negative emotional feedback and it seemed that whatever it was just doubled in intensity.
'I'm clearly staying away from this guy's problem. I feel like I might want to rip out his spine and beat him to death with it. And besides, he smells of werewolf, probably from helping and staying with McCain during his shifts.' Malia let out a tired sigh.
'I want to go home.' She never knew that this very thought of hers was a collective one shared by all students after 12 noon.
.
.
.
=================
Read up to 20 chapters ahead on my patreøn
Patreøn.com/Draul_TheOminous
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone