One moment, he was Crazy Ollie—twenty-eight years old, legendary rockstar, five-continent tour under his belt. The next, he's Oliver Crayle, a seventeen-year-old nobody waking up in a cramped high school uniform with a classroom full of strangers staring at him.
No band. No stage. No explanation.
Just a window seat, a sleepy coastal town, and hands that still remember every note he's ever played.
Determined to chase the music that got left behind in his old life, Oliver can't go five minutes
Crazy Ollie's School Rom-Com Operation! - A legend awakens in the classroom.
"……Shit."
Saying it out loud only made the situation harder to grasp.
I'm in a classroom right now. Not in the front row, not in the back row either. Window seat, last row. The classic spot where the protagonist sits in those youth dramas.
(Why the hell am I a high schooler?)
My head's a mess. My memories from yesterday—no, from just moments ago—are blurry, like static from a distant radio. I was definitely twenty-eight. A legendary rock singer who'd pulled off a five-continent tour. Crazy Ollie. That's who I was supposed to be. But now I'm a seventeen-year-old high schooler in a school uniform. I haven't looked in a mirror, but I can tell my body feels way too light. My fingers are thin, too. Only the calloused fingertips—hardened from years of playing guitar—remain unchanged.
(Why?)
I mutter it again in my head.
No answer comes.
I looked out the window. The waters of Sagami Bay glittered, reflecting the afternoon light. A small fishing boat floated in the distance. Namimachi City. That's where I am. A coastal city in Kanagawa Prefecture, population 68,000. This school is Namimachi East High School. Founded in 1978. ……How the hell do I know that?
Knowledge keeps flooding into my head, like someone's been feeding it to me. It's a strange sensation. Not my own memories. But I know it anyway.
"Oliver Crayle-kun. Are you listening?"
A man who seems to be the homeroom teacher is staring at me from the podium. Mid-forties. His suit doesn't quite fit him. His name is…… I forgot.
I slowly raised my head. My bangs fall over my eyes. Fiery red hair. I was blond in my original world, but somewhere along the way it turned red. Well, not bad. The face I saw in the bathroom mirror was a seventeen-year-old brat, but with traces of my old self. Only my sharp, golden eyes remained unchanged from when I was twenty-eight.
"You're a transfer student, so introduce yourself first."
"Yeah…… Oliver Crayle. Call me whatever."
That's all I said.
The classroom buzzed. Can't blame them. My uniform's worn sloppy, a black rock band T-shirt peeking out, safety pins and chains on my pants, white sneakers with flashy red laces. The homeroom teacher glanced from my head to my toes, looked like he wanted to say something, but just sighed.
"Your seat is the last one by the window."
"Got it."
I answered curtly and sat in the assigned seat.
In the seat next to me was a girl with black hair. Glossy hair reaching down to her waist, with thin side braids tied together in the back. Her bangs cut straight across above her eyebrows. Large, deep purple eyes. A face that would captivate any guy in an instant. But what caught my attention more than that was the way she was looking at me.
(What's with those eyes?)
The moment the girl saw my face, her body trembled. Then she clenched both hands tightly on her knees. So hard her fingertips went white.
I don't know her name yet.
But for some reason, my chest stirred. I feel like I know this sensation.
"Sakura."
A girl in the seat behind her called out in a small voice.
"Sakura? What's wrong?"
Sakura. So that's her name.
Sakura didn't answer. She just lowered her face. Her long black hair swayed softly, revealing the pale nape of her neck. The whole class was bewildered by me, this foreign object, but Sakura was shaken by something else entirely.
(Well, whatever.)
I turned my gaze back to the window.
The sea was shining.
"Not a bad view."
Just talking to myself. No one should have heard it.
"……!"
From beside me, the sound of someone catching their breath.
I looked over. Sakura's large eyes were opened even wider, staring hard at my profile. Then, as if snapping out of it, she averted her gaze and turned bright red. Red to the tips of her ears. She pressed a hand to her chest. Maybe she could hear her own heartbeat.
(She looks like she's about to cry.)
I thought that for some reason.
She bit her lip and faced straight ahead. But her eyes were glistening. Holding back tears. She'd only just seen my profile for the first time, and she was already on the verge of crying.
(What a strange girl.)
That's what I thought. But it didn't feel bad.
Homeroom dragged on. The teacher rambled about something. School rules, committees, the culture festival. All of it meant nothing to me.
(No music……)
My whole body itched. I couldn't help but want to tap out a rhythm. A melody kept playing in my head. It was a fragment of a new song. One I'd been writing in my original world. A song I'd been working on alone in the corner of the studio after the band decided to break up. I'd left it in that world, unfinished.
My fingertips moved.
Kan, kaka, kan, kakka, kakaka, tan.
I knocked on the desk with the pads of my fingers. A complex rhythm. A barrage of sixteenth notes. Then, a quiet hum.
"Nn…… nnn…… ♪"
Every student in the classroom turned around. Chairs scraped noisily.
"Wait, what was that?"
"Isn't he really good?"
"That rhythm's insane."
"Why is that transfer student drumming on his desk?"
Voices buzzed back and forth. I hadn't noticed. My eyes were closed, lost in my own world. The feel of the desk's wood grain against my fingertips. The vibration of the air. The sound coming back to me.
(Right. This is it.)
Music is still here.
"Oliver-kun!"
The teacher's voice cut through.
I slowly opened my eyes.
"Be quiet. We're in the middle of homeroom."
"Quiet? I was just quietly listening to music."
"You weren't listening—you were making noise."
"I tapped out a beat on the desk. Is that a crime?"
"Yes, it is. It's not something you do in a high school classroom."
I stared at the teacher's face. A serious expression. Genuinely angry.
(I still don't get the rules of this world.)
But there's one thing I know for sure.
"Stopping the music is what's impossible for me."
The atmosphere in the classroom shifted.
The earlier buzz vanished in an instant. Everyone was looking at me. Surprised faces. Confused faces. But mixed in were faces that seemed somehow drawn in.
Sakura had both hands over her mouth, holding her breath, staring at me. Her purple eyes shimmered, reflecting the light.
(What? Did the air just change?)
I tilted my head.
The teacher was silent for a while, looking around at me, at Sakura, at the whole classroom, then coughed into his fist.
"……Anyway, stay quiet during class. That's all."
Homeroom ended in a mess.
After school came.
I could see a few girls hovering around, trying to talk to me. But I didn't engage with anyone. No—I didn't even notice they were trying to talk to me. My head was full of that new song.
(Can I still write the rest of that song?)
I slung my bag over my shoulder and left the classroom. Walked through the school building. The hallway tiles were cold. The smell of after school. Chalk dust, sea breeze through the windows, the sound of a ball bouncing from the gym.
I reached the special classroom building. Second floor. My feet stopped in front of the music room.
(A piano……)
An old wooden door. I could see inside through a small window. One grand piano. Yamaha, thirty years old.
I walked in as if drawn by a magnet.
I opened the piano lid. The white keys glowed orange in the sunset.
I placed my fingers.
Do—a single note.
The sound dissolved into the air.
(This is it.)
I put both hands on the keys.
My fingers ran. The melody of that new song flowed out effortlessly. This seventeen-year-old body remembers the music of my twenty-eight-year-old self. This song was unfinished in my original world. But now, with the keys in front of me, my fingers moved. The melody demanded its continuation.
It's a song that starts with a quiet intro. Slowly, but surely, the sound spreads like waves rolling in. The low notes crawl across the floor, the high notes pierce the ceiling.
(Right. This is how I wanted it to sound.)
With the band, it would be a wall of noise. But played on piano, it shows a different face. As I played, I smiled. From the heart. The first time my lips had curved upward since coming to this world.
The sound echoed down the hallway.
One of the music room windows had a broken lock, and could be opened at night. The soundproofing wasn't perfect either. So this melody leaked out into the entire hallway.
Several students stopped in the corridor.
"What is that sound?"
"Piano……?"
"Beautiful……"
The murmuring spread.
But as they listened, everyone fell silent. The sound was silencing people. A melody so sad and burning it gripped deep in your chest. A strange power that stirred the emotions of anyone who heard it.
(Is this the power of my music?)
Even I didn't understand.
I just couldn't stop playing.
"……!"
From down the hallway, the sound of someone gasping.
I stopped my fingers and turned around.
Sakura was standing there.
Her face was deathly pale. Her lips trembled. She gripped the hem of her skirt with both hands, her whole body shaking slightly. From her large purple eyes—tears. A single tear ran down her cheek and fell to the floor.
(She's crying……?)
I pulled my hands from the piano.
"Who…… are you?"
Sakura's voice trembled. Hoarse. But her eyes never wavered from mine.
I had no intention of lying.
"Oliver Crayle. Rock singer. In my original world, they called me Crazy Ollie."
Sakura's slender shoulders trembled again.
"Crazy…… Ollie……?"
"That's right. I was twenty-eight, but before I knew it, I was a seventeen-year-old high schooler. Ridiculous, right?"
I tried to laugh.
But Sakura didn't.
She crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. She covered her face with both hands and broke down crying. Suppressing her voice, shoulders shaking, quietly but steadily, tears that wouldn't stop.
"……No, that's not it. I know you. I've always known you."
Sakura said in a trembling voice.
"Ever since I was little, I've seen you in my dreams. Dreams of a man I don't know playing guitar and singing. His face was always blurry. But the moment I saw you in the classroom, I knew. It's him. And then…… this sound…… it's the same as the song from those dreams…… I feel like I'm losing my mind."
I listened to her words in silence.
(She's been seeing me in her dreams?)
A chill ran down my spine.
"Hey, you."
Sakura looked up. Her face was a mess from crying. But her eyes looked straight at me.
"Do you know where I came from?"
"I don't know. I don't know, but…… I feel like I'm here to meet you."
Sakura smiled through her tears.
"It's weird, right? Sitting next to a transfer student and saying all this on the first day. It's creepy, right? But it's not like that. Ever since long ago…… I've been waiting for your songs."
I looked at her hair. Black, long, glossy in the sunset light.
(This face…… reminds me of someone.)
A band member from my original world. The lead guitarist. His name won't come to me. When I try to remember, a dull pain throbs in the back of my head.
"It's not creepy."
Sakura's eyes widened.
"But I'm confused. I still don't understand what's going on with this world."
"……Yeah."
"Stop crying. It's hard to talk."
"So mean."
Sakura made a strange sound.
"This isn't a laughing matter."
"But you said something mean."
Sakura wiped her tears with her sleeve. Then she stood up unsteadily and brushed the dust off her skirt.
"……I'm Sakura. Kamiya Sakura. Nice to meet you."
"I know."
"Huh?"
"The girl behind you called you that."
"You were eavesdropping?"
"It just reached my ears."
Sakura pouted.
"I thought Oliver-kun would have more rock-style conversations."
"What the hell is a rock-style conversation?"
"Like, flipping your hair back and saying, 'I'll play every one of your tears on my guitar.'"
"Who says that?"
"I want you to say it."
Sakura laughed quietly again. Naturally this time.
My chest felt a little warmer.
(This world might not be so bad……)
No, I still don't know.
But at the very least, music is here.
"Play again."
Sakura said.
"Next time, in front of me. Just for me."
"I'll think about
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