Bang!
With his stomach tightened and upper body leaning forward, Ronan lurched ahead, smacking his forehead against another with a crisp thud—like two overripe watermelons colliding. The recoil sent both of them tumbling backward. Ronan felt the unforgiving resistance of the hardwood floor once again, the impact jarring his waist and shoulder blades. His body curled up instinctively, and he couldn't help but grimace and groan in pain.
"Ah!"
A yelp came from the other side. As Ronan sat up, he saw his buddy across from him, scratching his head and rubbing his forehead like a chestnut splitting open. The guy's face was a mess of exaggerated expressions, completely devoid of any dignity.
Huff, huff.
Ronan caught sight of the other's comical state—rubbing his forehead nonstop as if it had cracked open, his white teeth fully on display. The guy even started flailing around like the floor was burning, breaking into an impromptu disco dance. A grin crept into Ronan's eyes despite himself.
Then the other guy spotted Ronan's own sorry state—his wet hair plastered to his head like a drenched chicken lost in a desert, his face scrunched up like a steamed bun. Ronan couldn't tend to his forehead, hands, and backside all at once, and the water dripping from his hair kept sliding down his T-shirt, the soaked fabric clinging stickily to his skin.
"Hahaha!"
Ignoring his own mess, the guy pointed at Ronan and burst into belly laughs, as if Ronan's earlier collapse had been instantly forgotten. His carefree cackling dragged Ronan into laughing along too.
Pain.
Weightlessness.
Gasping.
And… Ollie.
A flood of instinctive reactions—both physical and mental—left Ronan stunned. It was real. Everything around him felt too real. It wasn't just the visuals hitting him now that his sight was back, or the physical sensations his body registered. There was also a rush of unfamiliar information flooding his brain.
He was Ronan Cooper.
The guy in front of him? Ollie Love—a 6'1" giant with a baby face.
Behind them, arguing? Cliff Baron, with a bushy beard that stood out like a sore thumb, and Maxim Pfening, whose chiseled features could've been carved from an ancient Greek statue.
Around them? Regular patrons watching from the sidelines, inside a New Orleans bar called "Noon."
The four of them made up a band called "King For A Day," set to perform at Noon tonight.
Clearly, they weren't some wildly popular act, and the bar wasn't exactly packed to the rafters. There were maybe twenty or thirty people there—not die-hard fans who'd come just for the show, but more like folks who'd stopped by for a drink and figured they'd catch some live music on the side.
Details like these—and so much more—felt vivid and specific.
Most importantly, the information was concrete, rich, and overwhelming. It poured into his head all at once, triggering a cosmic explosion of a reaction. It was as if someone else's entire twenty-five years of life had been shoved into his brain in one go, leaving him reeling from mental indigestion.
Even the dream-weaving team from Inception couldn't pull this off.
Ronan needed a minute.
"You back with us yet? You sure you're okay? Need a break backstage? Though… the green room back there's like a furnace—you'd probably dehydrate in no time. But standing around in the bar isn't exactly a rest spot either. It's not like we're putting on a circus act. The crowd came to see a band, not watch a clown show."
"Or… how about you hide under the bar counter?"
Ollie's chatterbox ramblings yanked Ronan's focus back. Finally pulling himself out of the tangled mess of restored vision, hearing, and waking from a dream, Ronan started noticing more details.
English.
Ollie was speaking fluent, natural English—not Chinese. And Ollie was clearly a born blond, not the familiar black-haired, dark-eyed, yellow-skinned figure Ronan knew. Plus, this guy was supposed to be a total stranger, yet the sense of familiarity in Ronan's mind wasn't lying.
So, what the hell was going on?
One second, he'd been dreaming, lying on the wooden bed in his rented apartment, drifting in a haze. The next, he'd woken up—not as the Ronan born and raised in江南水乡 (Jiangnan's water towns), but as… well, he didn't even know what this Ronan Cooper looked like yet.
Something was seriously off.
Deep breath.
Another deep breath.
Ronan shoved the flood of chaotic info in his head to the side for now. He'd sort it out later when he could think straight. First things first—he needed to figure out the situation. "Ollie!"
"…You should see a doctor. I'm telling you, you need a doctor. A little cold could turn into a full-blown disaster otherwise. And you're our lead singer! What's the band supposed to do without a frontman? We can't afford to bail on this gig!"
Ollie was happily babbling away to himself, so Ronan had to grab his shoulders and shout again, "Ollie!"
This time, Ollie snapped to attention, his round eyes blinking at Ronan. "What's up?"
"What time is it?" Ronan asked the simplest, most direct question he could think of.
"Uh… you mean like, the exact time?" Ollie didn't catch on, flashing his bare wrists at Ronan with an exaggerated pout, as if to say, Don't you see? I'm not wearing a watch!
"The year," Ronan clarified with a wry smile, adding a cover for himself, "My brain's a total mess right now. It's all fuzzy—I can't think straight. It's like time and space got scrambled, and I don't even know where I am."
"God!" Ollie's face twisted with worry. Instead of answering, he pressed the back of his hand to Ronan's forehead, checking his temperature.
It was a bit awkward and clumsy, but Ronan didn't resist this time. He needed an excuse—something to buy him time to adjust.
Sure enough.
Ollie shook his head lightly. "Your forehead's still warm. The fever hasn't gone down yet. I told you this morning we should've postponed or canceled the gig. You were in awful shape—rambling nonsense all night, barely able to stand. But you guys still—"
Seeing the rant wasn't going to stop, Ronan cut in, "I had a dream last night. A really long one. It felt like we were back when the band first started, getting our first shot at a gig. Before going on stage, we were so nervous our hearts were pounding out of our chests."
It was a total lie—just vague, generic fluff with no real substance—but it was enough to hook Ollie.
"I remember! Of course I remember! How could I forget?"
Ollie's face softened with nostalgia. "Those were the days, huh? We didn't know a thing—just believed we could shake the world with our instruments. We'd charge in headfirst, pulling all-nighters like it was nothing. Who'd have thought seven years would fly by like that?"
He let out a soft sigh, his gaze settling on Ronan with a look of shared understanding.
"Who could've guessed it'd be 2012 already? Heh, you think the Mayan apocalypse is actually coming?"
2012?
So, he'd gone from 2020 to 2012 New Orleans?
Ronan decided he needed a breather.
(End of Chapter)