Yamaboshi High School was well-known for its lax school policies, save for one obnoxiously hard-line rule: all students were obligated to join a club. Supposedly the idea behind this rule was to encourage students to stay out of trouble while in exchange allowing their individuality to flourish in a relaxed learning environment.
Some found the idea of forcing club activities on high school students patently ridiculous; it wasn’t like they were still in middle school. Still, Yamaboshi’s club facilities and budgets were far more impressive than those of rival high schools.
But most impressive of all was the sheer number of clubs. The approval process was extremely simple: as long as you could get a minimum number of people to commit to joining, your club could be focused around basically anything. As a result, the total number of clubs exploded to well over 100. That said, a large percentage had since died out completely—and if you excluded clubs with no actual scheduled activities, the total number would shrink back to a reasonable amount (the high end of reasonable, though).
With or without activities, however, many clubs continued to exist, even if in name only... which meant first-year students were expected to choose from a giant list of over 100 clubs.
The one pitfall was thus: as a rule, any given club would only gain approval provided it was able to recruit at least five members under its helm.
At Yamaboshi, per the aforementioned rule mandating all students be affiliated with a club, all new students were required to submit a club membership application to their class advisor by a certain deadline. Those who chose an active club were promptly approved. Those who chose a dead club, however, would be given a few days to recruit other first-years (or poach older students from existing clubs) until the minimum of five members was met, at which point the club would receive official approval.
Regardless, the vast majority of students chose active clubs, as virtually all of the most desirable clubs fell under that category. Most crucially, however, the average first-year had no interest in going to the effort of reviving a dead club.
Every now and then someone would try to join one of these defunct clubs only to find out from other students that it didn’t technically exist. As such, no one ever really needed to resubmit their club membership application.
But for every rule, there are always exceptions.
In every category exists outliers.
Outliers like Yaegashi Taichi, a pro wrestling fanboy who saw “Pro Wrestling Research Club” in the club catalog and immediately submitted his membership application, unaware of the rule requiring a minimum of five members.
Outliers like Kiriyama Yui, a girl who recently developed a weird obsession with all things cute, possibly because she’d spent her entire childhood taking karate lessons, who saw “Style Club” in the club catalog (founded six years ago, only active for two), decided it was a sign from God, and promptly submitted her membership application, despite everyone warning her it wouldn’t meet the membership requirements, with the bizarre rationalization that it would somehow work out “because lots of girls enrolled this year.”
Outliers like Inaba Himeko, a girl whose hobbies include information gathering and analysis, who tried to join the Computer Club only to get in an irreconcilable dispute with the club captain on the last day of the trial period (a dispute caused by her own arrogance and the captain’s lack of patience), who then stormed back to the staff room to revoke her application, and from there attempted to revive the Data Processing Club, a dead club that was originally created by disgruntled former Computer Club members.
Outliers like Aoki Yoshifumi, a boy who had heard rumors about a “Playboy Club” that supposedly existed at Yamaboshi despite being completely unthinkable for underage students, thought it sounded like a fun time, chose to believe that he could totally still apply to join even though it wasn’t listed in the club catalog, did in fact apply, only to be told that it never at any point existed, as shown by the fact that it wasn’t listed in the club catalog, and then ultimately decided to try and create it himself.
Outliers like Nagase Iori, a girl who didn’t feel like choosing from a list of 100+ clubs, who declared that leaving such a choice to fate would be way more fun and memorable in the long run (though it wasn’t clear whether she was actually serious or just making a joke), who wrote “Your choice! ♡” on her application and ultimately left the task to the class advisor.
But so long as these outliers existed in public spaces, they were obligated to be bound by the same societal rules as everyone else. And as mere high schoolers, it was expected that they would assimilate into the dominant culture.
But even that rule had its own exceptions.
Perhaps the majority of outliers would simply submit to the overwhelming authority of the system.
But sometimes the outliers fought back.
Outliers like Yaegashi Taichi, Class 1-C, who said “Nobody told me I needed five members!”
Outliers like Nagase Iori, Class 1-C, who said “No, seriously, I want you to pick for me! I trust your judgment, Gossan!”
Outliers like Inaba Himeko, Class 1-C, who said “For now, would it be possible to extend the deadline? I promise I’ll dig up four more members.”
Outliers like Kiriyama Yui, Class 1-A, who said “Sensei, there must be some mistake! Girls my age love cute stuff! I demand a recount!”
Outliers like Aoki Yoshifumi, Class 1-A, who said “Huh? It doesn’t exist? Guess I’ll have to start it myself! That’s allowed, right? ...I need five members? Piece of cake!”
But this rebellion scarcely ever results in the desired outcome. Not just anyone can start a revolution, after all—the world is not that simple, and certainly not that fragile. In most cases, the outliers are either assimilated into the establishment or crushed entirely.
And yet, there are exceptions to that, too.
Sometimes, fighting the system leads to changes that the rebels never even intended.
Suppose, for example, the system was represented by a teacher named Gotou Ryuuzen, a teacher with a laid-back slacker mentality, who could be seen as either unconventional or irresponsible depending on one’s perspective, who decided it was too much work to try and convince Taichi, Nagase, and Inaba to join an active club, who came up with the ridiculous idea of putting the three students together in a brand-new club so they could do whatever they wanted “because it would be faster that way.”
Suppose, for example, the system was also represented by the advisor of Class 1-A, a teacher by the name of Hirata Ryouko, a woman with a friendly, devil-may-care personality, a pretty face, and a sexy figure, rumored to have been worshipped like a goddess during her high school days, a woman who had her ditzy moments, though this only served to make her even more popular among the guys, whose competence was occasionally questioned by a subset of the school, who heard that Gotou was thinking of starting up a new club and promptly volunteered two candidates from her own class.
Yes, it was a string of pure coincidences that led to the creation of the Cultural Research Club.
In other words, one could say the CRC was not only proof of the outliers’ triumph over the system, but also the product of a chemical reaction borne of deviant students paired with equally deviant teachers. (Disregard the heavy implication in the latter half of that statement.)
And so the Cultural Research Club was born, with Gotou stepping up as supervisor since it was his idea to begin with. Its objective: “a broader scope of research unfettered by existing frameworks.” Translation: anything goes.
In line with this objective, Taichi and the others made full use of the club’s allotted space and budget to... do whatever they wanted, basically.
But a club full of teenagers required at least a minimal level of supervision, and so in order for the CRC to earn its keep, the school mandated that the five of them submit a record of their activities once a month in the form of the “Culture Bulletin,” a periodical that the CRC would then make available to the rest of the school. (Its often nonsensical content would go on to win them a niche fanbase among the student body.)
But then, one day in September, the Cultural Research Club was plunged into a crisis that would threaten the group’s continued existence—no, forget the club. This crisis would shake the very foundations of their lives.
And this crisis, of course, was none other than the body-swap phenomenon and the resulting encounter with «Heartseed».
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