Michael smiled.

If she didn’t say it now, she might have to keep it bottled up inside forever.

Michael & Benny extra story: The first time Michael met Benny, she didn’t even see his face clearly. On the first day of third grade, she was riding on the back of the naughtiest chubby boy in class, her left hand pinching the fat on the back of his neck, her right knuckles grinding hard against his temple.

“Do you give in? Got anything else to say? Huh? Go on, shout, shout for everyone to pick you as class monitor! You? Want to be class monitor? Pfft, if you’ve got guts, hit me! Didn’t you brag you could beat me down? Look who’s down now?!”

The chubby boy was crying and begging for mercy, his face pressed to the ground, mumbling incoherently, just foaming at the mouth.

A circle of girls around them cheered loudly, while the other boys looked terrified, itching to try but in the end shrinking back to the edge.

Just then, amid the noisy commotion, a soft boy’s voice stood out.

“Excuse me... are you the class monitor?”

She looked up carelessly, gave the little boy standing at the door a quick, sloppy glance, then lowered her head to keep subduing the squirming chubby boy.

Rolling her eyes, she deliberately shouted, “Looking for the class monitor? Which one are you looking for, huh?”

She bit off every word hard.

The crowd got even rowdier, the chubby boy struggled a couple more times under her grip, but she punched him into submission. Michael caught a glimpse of a pair of little white shoes shuffling uneasily nearby, their owner awkwardly and shyly muttering, “Are you... Michael?”

All the girls raised their hands and cheered, Michael twisted the chubby boy even harder, her face flushed with excitement, then leapt up and pointed around loudly: “Did you hear that? Who’s the class monitor?!”

“Michael!!” The crowd was just short of chanting her name three times.

Only then did she look smugly at the delicate, good-looking little boy: “Hey, what do you want with me?”

The little boy looked at her, embarrassed and a bit scared, and said softly, “Teacher Zheng asked me to find you. I just transferred here.”

Michael finally regained a bit of the class monitor’s seriousness, straightened her collar and messy short hair: “Oh, oh...

Hello, classmate. My name is Michael, what’s yours?”

“My name is Jesse Hunter.”

She nodded, feeling a bit uneasy under the boy’s bright gaze.

What the... such a sissy, why is a boy so polite, talking all prim and proper...

She pointed to the empty seat in the second row: “Teacher Zheng told me, you sit there.”

Zoe Young laughed at this point: “Yeah, Benny really was like that, different from all the other wild boys.”

Just thinking of how Benny later turned into a little delinquent—or rather, a Hanazawa Rui-style delinquent—made her break out in a cold sweat.

Michael seemed to know what Zoe Young was thinking. She gave a weak smile: “Come on, with how wimpy he used to look, that pretty face wouldn’t last three days among the kids in our neighborhood before he got beaten up to a pulp!”

Zoe Young again wiped imaginary cold sweat from her forehead.

Michael wasn’t exaggerating. In a primary school on the urban-rural fringe, each grade had at most two classes, and the whole school looked like it was on the verge of collapse, as if there was no tomorrow. Most of the kids there grew up fighting in the nearby factories or wastelands, quick to form gangs and start turf wars.

Michael earned her class monitor title entirely by strength; she was more like a gang leader than a class monitor.

Unlike Zoe Young, who was always daydreaming about bloodless heroics, Michael never had time for fantasies—her world was full of real fights, even if the weapons were plastic.

Michael maintained basic order among the various factions, and also had to make time every day to look after Jesse Hunter, making sure he didn’t get bullied too badly—this fair-skinned little boy was like a lamb thrown from a tour bus in the civilized world into a wild Siberian tiger park; if they didn’t tear him apart, they’d have to write “tiger” backwards!

When she pulled him out from the bottom of a human pyramid for the umpteenth time, the chubby boy who’d failed to become class monitor finally led the other boys in jeering: “Michael big class monitor, do you like this pretty boy or what?”

No one really knew what “pretty boy” meant, but Jesse Hunter had a fair face, and that was enough.

“Get lost, what nonsense, I’m the class monitor, how can I just watch you bully him?!” Michael blushed.

Michael & Benny extra story: “Yo, big class monitor, who was it back then riding on someone else, bullying them to death?” Except for the embarrassed chubby boy, everyone else burst out laughing at this.

“You really think we’re scared of a girl? We were just giving you face. Leave the kid, you can go. No one cares about fighting you for class monitor anymore, who cares about that, you be the monitor, we’ll do our thing!” The chubby boy steered the topic back. Michael glanced at the teary, bruised, and battered “pretty boy” and sighed.

Always a fan of fighting, she had no choice but to bend down and pick up a big brick.

Luckily, the location was good—there was a tall brick wall right behind her.

All the boys took a step back, including Jesse Hunter—he retreated behind Michael.

“I really can’t take all of you. But I can at least knock one of you down. Doesn’t matter who gets hurt, if you’ve got guts, come at me together!”

Michael’s voice was a bit hoarse, her dark skinny arms trembling as she held the oversized red brick, giving off a tragic, do-or-die vibe.

The scene was at a standoff. The boys across from her saw Michael was serious, and all went dumb, whispering among themselves, but no one dared move. Retreating would be embarrassing, so they just stood there.

After all, who hadn’t been beaten up by her before?

But so many boys being scared off by one little girl—what would that look like? How could they show their faces around here? They weren’t little kids anymore, they were in fourth grade!

If the enemy doesn’t move, neither do I. But even though Michael’s aura was strong, her arms were clearly starting to shake.

Just then, the “pretty boy” Jesse Hunter, who everyone had ignored, bent down and grabbed two bricks, one in each hand. To everyone’s shock, he threw his head back and howled, yelling like he was on drugs, and charged straight at the crowd!

The boys didn’t even have time to react—two of them were knocked down by the bricks, including the chubby ringleader.

Jesse Hunter knew what he was doing—he only hit their shoulders or backs (mainly because he wasn’t strong enough to hit their heads), so the injuries weren’t serious, just a few scrapes. But their formation was broken, and the ragtag group scattered. Soon only the chubby boy was left, too slow to run because he was hurt, and Jesse Hunter sat on him with a brick in hand.

Seeing Michael still standing there with her brick, Jesse Hunter pressed his brick to the chubby boy’s thick neck, turned and shouted at her: “What are you standing there for?”

Michael gaped: “Did you take the wrong medicine or something?”

Jesse Hunter grinned carelessly: “I just saw you were about to drop your brick. If we waited any longer, we’d both get beaten up.”

Michael blinked, not sure what she was feeling, like a feather had brushed her heart, tickling.

She finally snapped out of it, let go, and dropped the brick, raising a cloud of dust.

She just gave Jesse Hunter a quick smile, signaling him to move aside.

Then, as usual, she climbed onto the chubby boy and punched him hard.

“I knew it, you fat bastard, you still won’t give up on being class monitor!!”

The two of them sat together on a slightly lower pile of bricks, using the chubby boy’s jacket to wipe their hands, watching him limp away in panic.

That was the third time letting him go.

The first time she let the chubby boy go, he blurted out a classic line: “Michael you just wait—”

Then Michael grabbed his collar and dragged him back: “I can’t wait!”

Of course, another beating.

The second time, the chubby boy learned his lesson and ran off without a word.

Michael dragged him back again: “Not even a goodbye? Do you even respect the class monitor? So rude!!”

And of course, another beating.

The third time, the chubby boy grinned and said all the right things, scrambling away, and Michael just kept a straight face and said, “Goodbye,” not picking a fight again.

“Why didn’t you hit him?” Jesse Hunter asked, arms crossed.

Michael sighed: “I can’t hit him anymore. His fat’s so springy, it hurts my wrist.”