She loudly paced the floor in front of me as I sat stuck to the chair, still unable to free myself. The heavy, incessant, tapping footsteps, which hit the floor in a rhythm annoyingly uneven to the clock ticking in the room, started to add to the huge migraine I had since a few hours ago. Though, finally, after several minutes, she stopped. My head pains were given mercy, much to my relief, but not for more than five small seconds. The girl turned towards me and began to speak in a loud, stern, professional, yet immensely annoying voice, which made me, once again, wince from the pain it bombarded to the center of my head. Despite my aches and my great objection to even cooperating with this girl, I replied accordingly.

"Name!"

"…Ramura Hidan."

"Age!"

"15."

"Blood type?"

"Err-"

"-Gender!"

"…Do you seriousl-"

"-Welcome to the brigade, new loyal recruit! Your first objective shall be the rigorous task of cleaning duty! You shall mop the entire floor without leaving so much as an atom-sized speck that hasn't been wetted and dried, or you'll face high punishment!"

At this point, my head ached so much that I was almost in tears. My eyes were tightly shut, and I had a great need to rub the sides of my head with my fingers to suppress the pain, but I didn't have the luxury of moving my hands at that moment.

"Anyway, it's getting dark, so I'm going home. See you tomorrow, new-guy!"

The girl tossed the mop in my direction, accurately planting it on my face before beginning to leave the room with her things. She slammed the door shut upon exit, as if merely to deliver a finishing blow to my migraine. Now I was alone in a dark room of an abandoned high school, long after school hours. While my classmates might've been enjoying dinner, I only had the option of sucking on the mop in my face. Thankfully, it was silent now, but there was a more serious matter at hand. I had a wet mop in my face, I was in cuffs, and I still couldn't escape from the room, much less the chair I sat in. All I could do was let out a deep sigh of relief from my head pain, my voice being muffled by the mop, which actually had a nice lemony scent if you sniffed past the smell of ass surrounding that.

…

This, the beginning of the end of my life, all happened thanks to my mistake of taking the first few fatal steps into this god-forsaken school. …Rather, the school cursed by the hands of god himself. …Or herself, and I'm not just trying to be politically correct.

"Ramura Hidan. Fairly competent student. Tendency to laze. Habit of indecent comments. Accused, but not proven of voyeurism…" This paper, amazingly detailed by my eccentric past teachers, was read to me as I was in a chair opposite from a faculty member in his desk in a dim room lit only by the large open window to the left of me projecting the morning daylight.

"I swear to you, those are jokes. My teachers-"

"-Ah, I don't mind those silly notes. Anyway, you came from Osaka? I've personally never been there, but I have good friends from there."

His eyes suddenly squinted at me.

"You don't seem to have an accent..."

I was asked this countless times throughout my life. My parents, who obviously taught me how to speak, weren't Osaka natives. Therefore, I don't speak like any Osaka man. Explaining this, somehow, took some time to do whenever I tried, so I stayed silent to save the trouble.

"Well, why would it matter, right?"

When he said this, he had a friendly smile on his face, though from my past experiences, I was able to identify this as a typical manufactured smile that any person would wear while making small talk with a stranger. The faculty member continued to skim through some more of my records for a while. In this time, I found myself almost slouching, and tried to cover a yawn while he was still flipping through papers. After what seemed like an entire ten minutes, he finally set them down and looked back at me with his smile again.

"Well, I personally welcome you to the school and hope that you enjoy it here, Ramura-san. North High is a fine school, in my opinion. We have a colorful student body, the food here's alright; you'll have a pleasant time for the remainder of this year."

After spending some time at this school, I just almost started to agree with what he said. There sure was a very colorful student body. The cafeteria food was much more than bearable. Though, those two things didn't necessarily help towards giving me a particularly pleasant time. In fact, it was about the same as the school I attended before, just twice as tedious and boring. I wanted to go home more than I ever had at any school.

The week slowly passed at an annoyingly slow, crawling pace. When it ended, I finally got to the point of being agitated by the peaceful, yet more so painfully uneventful working atmosphere. It was still only the start of my second week here as a mid-year transfer, Monday, and I felt like I was at an office desk job. I leaned forward into my desk with my head almost buried in my arms on the surface in front of me as the school day concluded. Transferring is supposed to be exciting. New schools are supposed to have a fresh feeling. Though, this school wasn't so distinguishable from any other, despite what that faculty member said. I thought that I'd finally get past the monotony in my life, but I began to think that it was impossible. I once again thought the one thing that I always thought every now and then: Maybe this is just the punishment for growing to be a lazy, pessimistic asshole, but the asshole gear in my brain denied that, as always. Other than stare outside the window, stare at girls, and argue with and overanalyze myself, there was nothing to do in this pale, tasteless school.

School clubs? Filled.

Student council? Work.

Sports teams? As if I'm an athlete.

And it took me little time to realize that "colorful student body" obviously meant shallow, superficial heap of angsty puberty victims. Seriously, the next time I hear-

"I need your help, so-and-so-chan! What pair of panties should I wear for so-and-so-kun tonight?"

-I will break someone's arm! Why doesn't anyone do that sort of thing for me?!

This place sucks! It's so damn boring here!

…

I suddenly realized that I made the dire mistake of saying that out loud.

"Hi there!"

The most cheerful, loud, brightly toned, yet somewhat annoying female voice I had ever heard demolished my wall of thoughts.

I looked up from the surface of my desk to where the voice came from. In front of my desk stood a girl with moderately short brown hair, a yellow ribbon clearing visible between her locks. I had to admit that she was kind of attractive, but there was something about her that repelled me. Something that just screamed "death" and "terror" that came from her bright, shining, golden eyes. In that sentence alone was the strangest collection of adjectives that was ever manufactured from my thoughts, an already apparent sign that this girl was dangerous. Suddenly walking up to her was a boy of darker brown hair and a lanky posture who had a strangely dour look on his face. He spoke to the girl as if he was her keeper.

"Haruhi, don't bother people at this time of day, please."

The girl quickly replied without redirecting her vision.

"Silence, Kyon, I'm busy recruiting!"

Recruiting? Is this for some club? The clubs I checked were filled, so this had to have been one of the many clubs on the list that I purposefully skipped over.

"Here, take it."

She gave me a piece of paper. It was a club advertisement flier covered with several different font types, a logo, and what seemed to be handwritten notes and terrible doodles. I read the text on it to myself… "The S.O.S. Brigade. Saving the world by Overloading it..." ...Eh?

"You appear interested."

I couldn't see how she came to that ridiculous conclusion from the retarded look I had on my face. The boy next to the girl tried to make her back off.

"Haruhi. You're mistaken. He clearly isn't interested. We don't need any more members either."

"What, Kyon? Do you fear that your position will be taken?"

I decided to speak up.

"...What do you guys do?"

Then the boy replied…

"We don't do anything in particular; it's incredibly boring-"

…Only to be cut off.

"Kyon! Anyone with enthusiasm for the brigade should fit right in!"

"He isn't showing any enthusiasm."

She and her companion began to argue.

"It's another mysterious transfer student! That's more than enough reason to recruit him!"

The boy sighed for a moment before attempting to continue.

"...But-"

"-Kyon, as chief, I'll handle further situations regarding this recruit myself."

I wasn't too sure about what to make of this. I tried to speak.

"Uh…-"

"-NO! Your life will end!"

…

The boy had suddenly gone out of his way and screamed this at me with a crazy look on his face. Every single student around us, including students from out in the hallway, were staring. This silence was suddenly broken by the sound of the furious impact of the girl's right palm meeting the boy's face.

"NGAH-!"

"Get a grip, Kyon! I'm taking him with me, no matter what!"

…A sentence that every boy wishes to hear from a girl, which in this context, struck fear to my conscience.

I was immediately pulled out of my desk and into the halls by my school uniform's necktie. When the boy finally recovered from the strike dealt to him seconds ago, he did his best to catch up with the two of us.

"Hey! Get back here! Haruhi!"

This had to have been further punishment for complaining about my boredom. I've been kidnapped by a highly possible mental illness case of a teenage girl. Considering her face and figure, most boys would consider this a gift from God, while I saw her as Heaven's executioner in a mere 81-50-83 centimeter guise. Don't ask how I'm able to accurately measure that so quickly while trying to catch up with a girl running at 22 kilometers per hour. "What will possibly happen next?" I asked myself. I had no idea, but I was sure there would be some factor of terror and or indecency to it. I decided to play along and follow her, though. But since she had me by my necktie with the grip of an iron fist, I had no other choice.

Eventually, we stopped at the door of the girl's clubroom. A piece of paper crudely taped to the plate above the door where the room number was supposed to be had "SOS Brigade" written on it with a black marker. The girl, still keeping a grip on my tie, kicked the door in, let go of my tie to put both her hands on my back, and pushed me inside. I lost my balance and had to grab on to a long table in the center of the room. Catching my breath, I looked up and scanned the room.

This clubroom looked rather plain at first, but was filled with some strange items. The table I used to catch myself had a stack of laptop computers sitting in the center. Behind the table in front of a window in the back of the room was a desk taken from a classroom. On that desk, were an expensive-looking LCD computer monitor, a mouse, and a keyboard, with the tower connected to everything sitting next to the front left leg of the desk. Next to the monitor was a slim black pyramid with "Chief" scribbled on it in white. Above a blackboard to the right of me was some sort of strange sun idol. Below the left side of the blackboard was a small table with a stove and tea kettle next to a tray of empty cups. Against the wall opposite of the blackboard was a bookshelf with various books. The particularly strange part, however, was the clothes rack of several girls' costumes that fit every otaku fetish imaginable standing next to a box of even more costume items behind a changing barrier. I couldn't help but think out loud,

"What the hell is this club for?!"

I suddenly turned towards the door as I heard the sound of it being locked. My heart rate rose and my adrenaline kicked in from this distinct noise. I looked at the tired, unhappy-looking boy getting locked outside after finally catching up with us, while the deranged girl turned towards me after locking the door from the inside.

"And what the hell is going on?!"

The girl responded to me,

"Simple, you've been captured and will be tortured severely unless you join our ranks under no conditions!"

…I actually laughed a little inside at this ridiculous response. On the outside, however, I kept an annoyed look on my face and a false aura of bravery. The boy outside of the room kept trying at the locked door for a while before giving up, putting his palm to his face, and collapsing below the window of the door. For getting locked inside a room alone with a girl, this was bad.

"So which will it be?"

I paused for a moment. What was this girl planning to do to me? Would I be able to help myself? Would I even live through this unharmed? Getting back to her question, instead of answering her, I had to ask,

"Why do you want me to join so badly?"

…And her answer?

"Answer the question that was stated to you!"

How much I suddenly wanted to punch her in the face at that moment was impossible to describe.

"Screw you! I'm not joining no matter what you say or do. You're insane! Now let me lea-"

"-Very well!"

She must've not been the type to respond to bravado, as she lunged at me, and angrily grabbed my collar. Without thinking, I had grabbed her left arm that held me to try and get her to loosen her grip.

…

"Unhand me…"

…Amazingly, it was not I who said this, but the girl named Suzumiya.

"Like hell I am! You let go of ME!"

Without realizing, I had just signed away my dignity. This physically violent girl readied her right arm and threw a furious straight haymaker punch. Fortunately, I ducked since she let go of my collar, probably wanting me to fall back on the table from her punch; but with all of the force that she contributed to that punch she threw, her entire body moved with her fist.

…

My face had collided with her chest. …Her 81 centimeter bust. A typical shonen manga trope that has less of a chance of occurring in real life than winning the lottery, or dying on the toilet, or being struck by lightning, all at the same time. This would be yet another blessing to an average boy, but in my situation, it wasn't so much of a blessing. The hit was broad and heavy; likely more so than what her punch would've been like. At that moment, the worst moment to have done this, I fell unconscious. Destroying what little pride I had left, I had unwittingly lost the only physical altercation I'd probably ever had in my life with a girl, or with anyone for that matter, without even receiving so much as a single strike, from a hand or foot at least. It'd only be worse if I had died. Actually, maybe it'd be better…

"High School Student Murdered, Killed by Breasts"

…Scratch that.

…And this was only the beginning to a long and tiring series of my misadventures with the most deranged club in any high school in existence.