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! - Evening Shower Confession, Melody of Tears
Five in the morning.
Sakura stood in her kitchen at home. Outside the window, it was still dark. From the direction of the sea, a faint scent of brine drifted in.
(*Today, too, I have to make it properly.*)
She retied her apron strings with a firm tug, then took eggs out of the refrigerator. On her left index finger was a white bandage. A small burn mark from yesterday, where oil had splattered. Even so, the speed of her fingers didn't slow.
She cracked the eggs. The whites and yolks slowly blended together in the transparent bowl. Sugar. Soy sauce. …And then, three drops from the little bottle she called her "secret ingredient."
(*Today's secret ingredient is this.*)
Sakura tilted the little bottle without even looking at the label. Inside was a special sauce she had newly concocted just the day before yesterday. When she sniffed it, it pricked her nose just a little, sharply.
"Hehe… I wonder if he'll like it."
In the empty kitchen, she laughed softly. She pictured Ollie's face. Those golden eyes. That blazing red hair. …Just thinking about it made her cheeks loosen.
(*Today, I'll ask him what he thinks.*)
She set the tamagoyaki pan over the flame. The oil slowly began to heat up.
—7:40 AM.
Morning light streamed into the classroom.
Ollie was sitting at his desk again today, gazing out the window. Sagami Bay glittered silver in the distance. His fingers tapped unconsciously against the edge of his desk. A rhythm. Today, the tapping had a slightly bouncing quality to it.
"Good morning."
Along with her voice, a shadow fell softly beside him.
He looked, and Sakura was standing there. Her black hair was in braids again today, and beneath her blunt-cut bangs, her violet eyes wavered. In her hands, a bundle wrapped in light-blue cloth. —A lunchbox.
"Yo."
Ollie raised one hand. That was all.
Sakura took her seat, her ears turning red. She straightened her back, but her hands trembled as she opened her textbook. Even so, she stole a glance at the profile of the man in the seat next to her.
(*He's so cool today, too…*)
She murmured in her heart, then hurriedly looked down.
Lunch break.
Sakura pushed open the door to the rooftop.
"Let's eat on the rooftop again today, okay?"
"Don't care where we eat."
Ollie was empty-handed. Sakura was carrying the lunches. Two of them. In her arms, she held two bundles, a size larger than usual, cradled carefully as if they were precious.
There were no other students on the rooftop. Lunch break had only just begun, so no one else had come. They had the place to themselves.
A strong wind blew in from the sea.
Spring in Namimachi was windy. Standing on the rooftop, you could see the entire surface of Sagami Bay. Small boats leaving the fishing port cut through the water, trailing white foam. Far off, the faint shadow of the Miura Peninsula.
"It's so windy here."
Sakura held down the hem of her skirt with one hand as she tried to spread a sheet on the floor. But the wind flipped the sheet up. She let out a shriek and pressed it down with both hands.
"Eek…! W-wait, this…"
The sheet flapped and thrashed in the wind. Her black hair clung to her face. The hem of her skirt lifted softly.
—And then.
Ollie silently stepped in front of Sakura.
Had the wind changed direction? No, that wasn't it. By standing upwind of her, Ollie had made the air around Sakura suddenly go still.
He shrugged off his jacket—his school uniform jacket—with a flourish. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he draped it over Sakura's lap.
"How's that?"
Sakura froze.
Her breath stopped. Her heart leaped hard in her chest.
(*H-he just—on my legs—*)
She sat collapsed on the sheet, unable to move. Still holding a piece of tamagoyaki in her chopsticks, time froze solid.
Ollie paid no attention to her state whatsoever. He briskly took his own lunchbox, opened the lid, and popped a piece of tamagoyaki into his mouth.
"Not bad."
He chewed and swallowed, completely unruffled.
"…Um, Ollie-san, is it… good?"
Sakura finally squeezed out her voice. Her face was still red. She could hear her own heartbeat.
"Yeah. Not bad."
This time, Ollie picked up what looked like karaage with his chopsticks. The color was subtly dark.
"Are you saying that because you can actually taste it?"
"I can't."
Ollie swallowed the karaage and set down his chopsticks.
"I'll be straight with you. No matter what I eat, I don't remember the taste. Always been that way. Strong or weak, spicy or sweet—I can barely tell any of it apart."
Sakura's hands stopped.
"My sense of taste might just be broken."
Ollie's golden eyes stared out at the edge of the sea. His profile looked, just a little, lonely.
"…But you always eat my cooking, Ollie-san."
"For someone like me who can't tell good from bad, the quality of the food doesn't matter. You make it, I eat it. That's all there is, right?"
The wind blew again.
Ollie's red hair swayed softly.
Sakura gently set her lunchbox down on the floor. She gripped the school jacket on her lap with both hands.
"Is that… really okay…?"
Her voice trembled.
"Okay with what?"
"That you can't… taste anything…"
Tears welled up in her violet eyes.
"But I remember. That today's lunch was a little too salty. That the tamagoyaki came out a bit firm. I remember all of it… so it's fine."
"Is it?"
"Yes. I'll remember for you, Ollie-san. So from now on, always…"
Sakura lifted her face.
With tears still brimming, she looked straight at Ollie.
"I'll keep making lunches for you, by your side, forever."
Ollie blinked, just for an instant.
Then he let out a soft laugh.
"You're a weird one."
"Leave me alone."
Sakura laughed too, wiping her tears.
After school.
The weather forecast hadn't said anything about an evening shower.
Ollie was in the music room on the second floor of the special classroom building. He opened the lid of the old grand piano and let his fingers glide. That song—the one he hadn't fully memorized. The new song he'd been writing with his bandmates in his original world, never finished.
(*Still can't get it all out.*)
His fingers stopped. The melody in his memory, like the sea outside the window, came close and then receded.
—Plink.
The sound of a water droplet hitting the window glass.
He looked, and the sky had darkened all at once. Thick gray clouds covered the school building.
—Shhhhhhh.
An evening downpour. Rain like a waterfall pounded against the music room windows.
"…"
Ollie listened to the rain for a while. He was about to close the piano lid when—
Clatter.
The music room door burst open.
"Ollie-san…! I knew you'd be here…"
Sakura stood there, out of breath.
She was soaked to the bone.
Her waist-length black hair had absorbed water, and strands that had come loose from her braids clung to her cheeks. Her white blouse stuck to her body, and droplets dripped from the hem of her skirt.
"Where's your umbrella?"
"It wasn't raining when I left home. And then I heard the piano… I was on my way back from picking up something I forgot in the classroom… and I just ran here."
She smiled. Soaking wet, as if that were something to be happy about.
"Dry off before you catch a cold."
Ollie tossed his sports towel at her carelessly.
The towel landed softly over Sakura's face.
"…!"
She pressed the towel with both hands. And stayed still.
"What's wrong?"
"…Just, wait a moment, please."
Sakura buried her face in the towel. She turned her back so no one could see.
(*Ollie-san's scent…*)
The towel smelled of a man's sweat, a faint trace of cigarettes, and the sea. Her shoulders trembled slightly.
"You crying?"
"I'm… not crying…"
Her voice was wet.
—Outside, the rain fell harder and harder.
The sound of rain filled the entire music room. The piano's black mirrored surface reflected the dark sky outside the window.
"It's wet in here. The prep room next door was unlocked."
Saying that, Ollie briskly opened the door at the back of the music room.
The two of them entered the music prep room.
It was a small, dusty room. Equipment from the light music club, currently on hiatus, sat here and there covered in dust. Three guitars. A bass. Drumsticks. On the walls, faded band posters.
The window was small, and the sound of the rain outside came through muffled.
"…I heard it yesterday, too."
Sakura spoke quietly.
"Heard what?"
"Your piano, Ollie-san. You play almost every day after school, don't you? I've been listening from the library window the whole time. A song that's like singing, but… a little sad…"
Her voice was small. Droplets were still falling from her hair.
Ollie stared out the window, silent, as if thinking about something.
Then, suddenly—he began to hum.
"…Nn, nn… nnn…"
A low, hoarse voice.
It was the vocal part of the song he'd been playing on the piano. Not notes, but a wordless melody welling up from deep inside him. His fingers unconsciously tapped out a small rhythm with a nearby drumstick.
Tap, ta-tap, tap.
It was a song by the band he had led in his original world.
Sakura's body trembled violently.
Her violet eyes went wide.
"…Ah."
Her breathing grew shallow.
(*This song…*)
Images flashed through her mind like a flashback.
A dimly lit live house. Sweat and smoke and the heat of the crowd. On stage, a blond man clutching a guitar, singing as if screaming. That man's fingers. His voice. The crescent-shaped scar at his throat.
—All of it, just like you.
"…No… way…"
Tears spilled from her eyes, one after another.
Ollie stopped humming.
"What's wrong?"
"That song… that song—the person who appears in my dreams… was playing it."
Sakura covered her face with both hands. Tears overflowed through the gaps between her fingers, unstoppable.
"That person's hands, that person's voice… everything feels the same as you. It doesn't just feel the same… it IS the same. I—I know this song… I know it…!"
She cried, her shoulders shaking.
Only the sound of rain filled the prep room.
In that moment, Ollie clearly realized that the song he'd been humming was one of Waldstein's songs.
(*…I see. This is from back then.*)
He looked at his own palm. His fingertips, hardened in layers from playing guitar. These hands had, without a doubt, played that song.
"…What's that song called?"
Sakura asked through her tears.
"I don't remember."
Ollie answered honestly.
"The title, the lyrics—nothing comes out. My memory is fragmented. Only the music is soaked into my body. My fingers remember. My voice remembers. But that's all."
He clenched his fist. His nails dug into his palm.
(*It's this close.*)
(*The name, the lyrics, everything—*)
"…It's frustrating."
Ollie muttered quietly.
"Even if you don't remember."
Sakura wiped her tears and gently placed her hand over Ollie's fist.
The man's fingers were rough and hard. Her slender fingers touched them as if wrapping around them.
"Even if you don't remember, that music reaches me. Properly."
Ollie's golden eyes looked at Sakura.
She was smiling, her face still streaked with tears.
"Hey, Ollie-san. I want to be your strength."
On the way home.
The rain had stopped.
Every window of the school building reflected the sunset, blazing with light. Puddles mirrored the orange sky.
Sakura walked beside Ollie.
A little ahead of her, the sleeve of Ollie's school jacket.
"Ollie-san."
She grabbed that sleeve from behind.
"…Do you think I could help you remember that song? Together."
Her expression was serious. Her violet eyes, lit by the setting sun, pierced straight into Ollie.
"Having you as my strength isn't bad."
Ollie turned around.
"…But why you?"
"Because it's fate."
She said it clearly.
"I found you because you looked exactly like the man in my dreams. But now it's different. Because your music moved my heart. I want to know more about your… your songs."
Sakura's fingers gripped the sleeve tightly.
"I want to be your strength. I want to remember that song with you. Is that not allowed?"
Ollie stared at Sakura's face
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.