Prologue and Character Introduction is a lot like Clamping

Prologue and Character Introduction is a lot like Clamping (プロローグというかキャラ顔見せというかツカミのようなもの, Purorōgu to iu ka kyara kaomise to iu ka tsukami no yōna mono) is the pilot chapter of the Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai light novel series. It is chapter zero of volume one.

Summary
The protagonist, Kodaka Hasegawa described that the following event is just a hallucination.

Kodaka and the Neighbor's Club have arrived at a tropical island and were having a great time enjoying themselves. Kodaka was laying on the beach and he looked at two girls, happily building a sand castle.

The ten-year-old with silver hair and blue eyes wearing a school-swimsuit is called Maria Takayama, who's also the teacher in charge of the club was playing along well with the slightly older girl, with blond and a pair of heterochromatic eyes, while wearing a pink, skimpy bikini is Kobato Hasegawa, Kodaka's younger sister.

As he was watching, Yukimura Kusunoki, a guy, wearing a cute, two-piece pareo-style swimsuit. Yukimura has a glass of tropical fruit juice and was smiling at Kodaka as he accepted the drink. Beside Kodaka, is a bespectacled girl wearing a one-piece swimsuit with a lab-coat and reading a book is Rika Shiguma.

The book in Rika's hands was a BL doujishi featuring mecha robots. At the sea, Kodaka saw two girls, one with blond hair and a buxom body and one with black hair and sharp eyes, Yozora Mikazuki and Sena Kashiwazaki.

Yozora was wearing a full-body swimsuit with stripes while Sena was wearing a standard bikini and both were happily splashing water to each other. Kodaka was really elated to see such a spectacle, however, as stated, this picture was only but a hallucination.

''“-npai. Wake up, Senpai… here.”''

Rika then tasered Kodaka and this sent him flying back to reality. Rika then says that Kodaka should not "escape by himself" while laughing oddly. Kodaka then said that he had a cheerful vision and Rika asked what kind of vision as Kodaka said that Yozora and Sena were happily playing together while Rika says that it is unscientific.

Kodaka says that it's not that unscientific but nevertheless, understands this since he knows that Yozora and Sena would never ever play with each other.

Right then, Yozora and Sena, with bloodshot eyes, looked at each other asking who would surrender as both placed their chopsticks to the pot of bubbling black contents and ate whatever they got, with horrible results as Kodaka says that they are now experiencing hell.

“Onii-chan… Onii-chan… The devil, the devil is here…”

“An-chan, come back, you can't kill it…”

Both Maria and Kobato murmured these words with pained expressions on their face as if they were in a nightmare. Yukimura who was seated between Yozora and Sena was still moving his chopsticks to and from his mouth even when he's no longer picking up any food.

Kodaka then wondered what's wrong with Yozora and Sena as they still wanted him to eat up. As Kodaka picks up a piece of food, he asked Rika if that really is non-toxic as Rika says yes. Kodaka then says that a few days ago, Yozora and Sena decided to have a black hotpot practice for future friends.

Since the rest of the club also somehow agrees, Kodaka decides to prepare for the soup, making a black colored soup (since he doesn't know that the "black" part refers to the dimming lights when one was about to place the food in) and on Monday morning, today Kodaka placed his soup into the hotpot Rika built and soon, here they are.

Although Kodaka told them to only put edible ingredients, it somehow made Kodaka's seafood soup taste bad later and Kobato and Maria were knocked out after ten minutes. Soon, Yozora and Sena began to shift the blame. At some point, it was established that the one who is able to last the longest is the winner and hence, Yukimura is dead.

Lucky for Kodaka, he mostly got meatballs and potatoes so he was able to survive until now. Both Rika and Kodaka then extend their chopsticks and eat the food. Kodaka got broccoli however, Rika did not get so lucky as she said that the food tastes of Methylethanolamine (A substance used mainly as a building block in the coatings industry) before getting knocked out cold.

It turned out, other than Kodaka, other members actually brought sweets and fruits to the hotpot that will later make them feel sorry as Kodaka, Sena and Yozora all placed their chopsticks in and pulled something out. Sena then fell backward as Yozora made a triumphant smile but her face also turned pale.

Unable to handle the food anymore, both of them regurgitated their stomach's contents towards Kodaka as he affirms his belief that both Yozora and Sena are crazy. The entire room was now filled with the noxious gas as Kodaka opened the windows to have some fresh air and wonders what should he do with the vomit on the floor.

The place is in Saint Chronica's Chapel: Meeting Room #4, the Neighbour's Club's activity room.

Even though the club does many different and interesting activities on paper, in truth they are mostly simple and were done without any guiding principle. Each club member just wastes their time chatting, gaming, making games, writing novels, drawing manga, practicing musical instruments, acting, doing stand up comedy, doing Shinken Zemi (A form of Studying) preparing ‘unknown topics of chatting,’ and finally eating black hotpot.

The goal of the club was to make friends. As Kodaka comments that on the first few pages, the two main heroines were puking and hence, the regretful slice-of-life story begins!