The voice came from behind. Excel spun around and found a girl with fair skin, long brown hair, and deep-brown eyes. She was wearing a cream-white dress that outlined her hourglass figure. Excel thought of her as Snow White because of her skin. Everyone's attention flew to her.
"Are you his girlfriend?" a short girl beside Excel asked.
"Not yet," Snow White boastfully answered as her chin shifted upward.
The woman with full bangs cut in. "And who the hell are you to lay claim to him?"
"It is the Alpha, of course, whose wants come before anyone else's," Snow White said. "Anything I want, no matter how much you like it, should be surrendered to me."
"How dare you tell us what to do." Full Bangs briskly walked toward Snow White and attempted to give her a slap, but a slender woman with a mole under her lip pulled Snow White away just in time.
"Looks like the next scene will be interesting to watch," Excel, who was smirking, mumbled to his cousin Roi.
"Are you serious? You're just going to watch them? Aren't you gonna stop them?" Roi asked.
Excel rolled his eyes. "They can't be stopped no matter what I'll do. I've been here so many times and believe it or not, it is so fun watching them when you know they're fighting over you."
"You're crazy." Roi shook his head.
Enraged, Full Bangs tried to slap Snow White again, but someone held her hand from behind. Full Bangs turned and saw that the person restraining her was a girl with braided licorice hair and a bright-white powdered face.
A tan girl wearing cat-eye glasses leaped from the mezzanine floor down to the lobby, landed in front of Full Bangs, and slapped her. Full Bangs stumbled backward a few meters clearly stunned. Her cheek looked like it had been slashed by a tiger's claws.
A woman with her hair in a side bun and angular cheekbones drew near Snow White. "The same thing will happen to those girls who dare touch our leader," she said to Full Bangs and the other girls.
"Not only that. The same thing will also happen to anyone who dares to approach him," Snow White said as she turned to Excel and pointed at him.
The thrilled but frightened crowd froze in shock. However, one of them dares to answer.
"We are not afraid of you. You are no match to all of us combined," said the lady with small eyes spaced widely apart. She took one step forward, but everyone stepped the other way around. She took her step back when she realized no one was on her side.
Snow White walked over to Excel, staring at him directly. The details of her eyes, chocolate brown and so deep he felt he might drown in them, became more evident as she got closer.
She extended her hand. "Aliah." Her face was unlike any face Excel had seen before. "Aliah Perez."
He accepted her hand. "Excel."
Aliah kissed his hand. "You are mine now, Excel."
Gossips dominated the lobby. Excel got a bit distracted on the noise but Aliah was so focused to him.
Excel smirked. "I am nobody's."
"But mine."
Three security guards rushed in and attended to Full Bangs. "Who did that to you?" one asked.
"She! She did this to me!" Full Bangs pointed at Aliah. The security guards apprehended her and took her from the lobby.
Excel and Roi didn't want to get any more involved in what could happen next, and so they left as soon as they finished the enrollment procedure. They walked home to help Excel become familiar with Tajana for their grandpa couldn't always pick them up. Along the way, Excel couldn't stop thinking about the possessive Aliah, who would always be Snow White to him.
"That Snow White—she wanted me to be hers and only hers, and even threatened any girl who thought otherwise. Who does she think she is?" Excel snapped.
"Anyway, those girls she was with, they can fight," Roi said. "I have no doubt she could fulfill such a threat. You must be careful."
When Excel and Roi arrived home, their grandparents, Lucho and Lolita, were sitting at the table in the living room, having brewed coffee and bread. The two cousins joined them.
"So how was the enrollment?" Lolita asked.
"It was fine until some girls fought for Excel's attention," said Roi.
"You mean girls still go crazy over him, even in this place? Really?"
"My charm doesn't depend on the place, Grandma. It depends on the gender," Excel said lightly, trying to change the sudden darkness of the mood at the table.
"Shut up," she said impatiently. "I'm talking to Roi. Answer my question, Roi."
"Yes, Grandma. There was even a girl who got a cat-scratch-like wound on her face from another girl who was protecting another girl. Do you get it?"
"What?" Lucho asked.
"I said there was this girl—"
"Werewolves!" Lolita interrupted and stood up from her seat. "They were protecting their Alpha."
"Here we go again, Grandma." Roi shrugged. "Werewolves are just myths."
"They aren't merely a myth," Lucho said. "I used to be a hunter, and one of my mates said he saw the biggest of them, a werewolf with extremely white fur and deep-blue eyes."
Roi snorted. "But no one has ever showed any evidence. Those are just stories, okay? No one has ever reported an attack."
"Because the werewolves were living in peace and so did not attack anyone." Lolita settled back down in her seat. "Just don't mess with them and you'll be safe."
Excel half-turned to the gun displayed above the fireplace. "Is that rifle yours, Grandpa?"
Lucho tapped him on his shoulders and chuckled. "Yes, but I'll teach you how to use it so it can be yours."
"No, Lucho. He is too young to have a gun," Lolita said.
"Danger does not depend on one's age. He's about to enter college and..." Lucho lost his train of thought for a moment. "And werewolves. Just in case they attack him."
"Werewolves?" Excel frowned. "I doubt they exist." He looked at Lucho. "But Grandpa is right. Whether they're real or not, at least I should know how to defend myself."
"So, when do you want us to start?" Lucho raised his eyebrows at him.
"After my burial," Lolita said. "You can only start after I am dead and buried."
Excel sighed with despair. "Grandma."
"Just so you know." Lucho leaned in close to Excel's ear and murmured, "Cats have nine lives, so stop hoping you'll learn how to use that rifle anytime soon."
"I heard that," said Lolita before biting into her bread.