KMKS 30

chapter 30

On the way back in the carriage, Aiden uncharacteristically kept his eyes fixed on the window.

Reflected in the glass, he looked deeply troubled. His blue eyes wandered aimlessly beyond the windowpane.

Those once bright, lively eyes had gone cold, and that weighed heavily on Sarah’s heart.

Aiden sometimes shook his head as if he had a splitting headache, letting out low groans of pain.

Each time, Sarah searched his face for clues, but frustratingly, there was nothing she could do to help.

What on earth happened to him?

The barren, unfamiliar air between them made Sarah fidget with her fingers for no reason.

It seemed clear that something had changed in her husband after his meeting with Duke Winston.

Perhaps they had clashed again over the demolition of the Riera building.

That was as far as Sarah’s imagination could take her.

Surely, it can’t be for another reason…

From the beginning, what Sarah had worried about most was how Aiden would react when he learned that Duke Winston too was suffering from memory loss.

[Well, it seems Duke Winston also recently lost his memory.]

But when Olga had told him first, Aiden’s reaction had been nothing like Sarah imagined.

He didn’t seem to take it very seriously at all.

So, when she heard that Aiden was going to meet with the duke privately this time, she hadn’t felt overly uneasy.

She thought they would just discuss simple matters of business.

After all, since both men already knew about each other’s amnesia, nothing new Duke Winston could say would change things.

Of course, Sarah was still worried about her husband’s health.

Is his body truly in that much pain?

The changes in Aiden after the accident were one thing, but compared to the relaxed, joking man he had been on the terrace just a short while ago, his appearance now made Sarah bite her lip.

They had even shared a laugh earlier.

The carriage jolted harshly over uneven ground, breaking the silence.

Aiden leaned back against the seat, surrendering his body to the swaying carriage.

His eyes squeezed shut, his face tightened with pain—he looked truly tormented.

Sarah had hoped his condition might improve once they returned home.

But the first thing out of his mouth was unexpected.

“…May I have some time alone?”

The moment they entered the mansion, he asked her—no, urged her—not to come into his study for a while.

“…How long do you mean by ‘a while’?”

Not understanding, Sarah cautiously stepped closer, but Aiden turned his head away.

It almost looked as if he were avoiding her. His Adam’s apple quivered faintly.

“Just give me a week.”

“…”

Sarah’s heart was torn between worry and confusion.

After all, it had been Aiden himself who first suggested she spend time in his study.

Was it because they had grown closer recently? Or because she had unconsciously begun to rely on him?

[I hope your memories never return.]

[That is my one wish.]

Not long ago, Sarah had confessed her wish to him.

[That will never happen. I’m making no progress at all.]

Maybe because of his firm answer—that such a thing would never happen—Sarah hadn’t even considered the possibility that her husband’s memories might already have returned that very night.

All she wished now was for the headaches tormenting him to vanish quickly.

* * *

Aiden’s steps toward his study, leaving Sarah behind, felt unbearably heavy.

Each step dragged as if weights were tied around his ankles.

Earlier, when the carriage had jolted so violently, a torrent of memories—belonging to no one he could recognize—had suddenly flooded into his head.

But in his current condition, he couldn’t possibly endure such an onslaught.

What he did know for certain was that these fragmented puzzle pieces of memory weren’t his.

And that a serious problem was fast approaching.

The moment he reached his study, Aiden collapsed onto the sofa without even bothering to change clothes.

At least here, in the comfort of his own space, some of the tension left his body.

Closing his eyes, he recalled the tense confrontation with Duke Winston in the greenhouse garden.

Watching the duke, breathless and barely able to contain his emotions, stirred an unexplainable feeling in him.

[I’ll lose my mind! Get out of my sight!]

Aiden had reached out to help the man, but the duke had violently shaken off his hand.

The more they spoke, the more the duke cried that his head felt like it would split apart from the pain.

So he begged—no, shouted—for Aiden to leave.

Aiden, too, was suffering.

At first, he thought it was simply jealousy at the duke casting unwanted glances toward his wife.

And of course, his headaches always worsened under stress.

[You used to keep your wife hidden away in the mansion, didn’t you?]

[And you were such a womanizer that you even brought other women into the house.]

[Turns out you and I aren’t so different after all.]

But the more he listened, the more it felt as though the story wasn’t about him.

If those words were truly his own past, then the image of himself should have grown clearer in his mind. Instead, it only grew fuzzier.

In that fleeting moment, as his feverish mind cooled, he felt utterly detached from the “Aiden” being described.

Could it be…?

He shook his head.

But then, as if to test him, Olga’s voice echoed in his mind.

[Well, Duke Winston also recently lost his memory.]

Aiden sat up quickly, hurrying to his desk. He dug through the piles of papers until he found the demolition contract for the Riera building.

Some would call him mad, but he had to confirm this.

He spread two contracts side by side on the desk.

One was from before the accident, prepared for Duke Winston’s signature.

The other, from after the accident, was the one Winston had presented to Aiden for his signature.

He knew the thought forming in his head was absurd, yet once the seed had sprouted, it refused to die.

His face bore no hint of a smile.

<Aiden Spencer> <Leo Winston>

His pupils trembled as he stared at the two different names. His hand holding the paper shook violently.

If each contract belonged to different men, then the handwriting should be different.

And yet—except for the names themselves—the handwriting was exactly the same, as if written by one person.

What in the world…!

Even seeing it with his own eyes, Aiden couldn’t believe it. He rubbed at them furiously.

But nothing had changed.

He quickly grabbed a pen.

He tried to calm himself, but the closer he came to confirming his outrageous suspicion, the harder it was to stay composed.

With trembling hands, he pulled out a fresh sheet of paper.

On it, he hastily wrote both names—Aiden Spencer and Leo Winston.

The scratching sound of the pen echoed unnaturally loud in his ears.

<Aiden Spencer> <Leo Winston>

As he wrote, the pen slipped from his grasp and rolled off the desk onto the floor.

The handwriting he had just produced—his own—was completely different from the two on the contracts.

Comparing his writing with the signatures on the contracts, Aiden could no longer deny it.

The memories that had suddenly flooded into him in the carriage…

Leo Winston.

They were his own.

Aiden ground his teeth.

He recalled that Leo Winston too had lost his memories. And suddenly, an awful realization dawned on him.

If his theory was correct, then the reason Duke Winston collapsed with a headache mid-conversation…

…was because their bodies had been swapped.

He didn’t know how or why such a thing had happened.

But if they had been switched, then they had to be restored.

Everything had to be set back in its rightful place.

He couldn’t live as “Aiden Spencer” while carrying Leo’s memories.

And more than anything, he had unfinished business to carry out under the name Leo Winston.

His trembling fingers stilled on the desk.

For a moment, even the ticking of the clock disappeared.

In the sudden stillness—

Sarah.

Her face flickered in his mind.

Thinking of his wife only deepened his anguish. She knew nothing of this.

[I hope your memories never return.]

[That is my one wish.]

Her voice had been tinged with tears.

Aiden buried his face in his hands, despair flooding his chest.

He had wanted to protect her no matter what.

But her first and only request of him…had become something he could never grant.

And now…I suppose I can’t even call her my wife anymore.

The thought was unbearable.

Just a short while ago, they had attended a gathering together under the name of husband and wife. And now… they weren’t.

The look she had given him lingered in his mind. She had only just begun to step out of the shadows and into the light.

He raked his hands through his hair roughly.

If he returned to his rightful place as Leo…

He could already see, with burning clarity, what the real Aiden Spencer would do to Sarah.

[All men are the same, after all.]

No, he could never allow that.

If the man had looked at her with such cold, oppressive eyes even while wearing Leo Winston’s face…

Then what kind of cruelty would he show once back in his own body, as her husband?

The mere thought made veins bulge on Aiden’s forehead.

Around him, the study was neatly ordered—the half-read books, the chair, the slippers—everything arranged meticulously to his own habits.

As though it had always belonged to him.

But it hadn’t.

Like the pen that had fallen and now lay useless on the floor, he too did not belong here.

Recalling the fierce, menacing gaze of Aiden Spencer—the real one—Aiden clenched his fist tight.