Chapter 1

After a massive fight with Elena, I left that suffocating house.

It was pouring rain outside, and I was forced to take shelter in a small, to dimly lit shop.

As I stood there trembling from grief and despair, the shopkeeper handed me a towel. Then, opening his calm eyes, he asked, "Sir, our shop has one last piece of the Oblivion Capsule. Do you need it?"

He pulled open the drawer behind him and pushed a dark black velvet box to the center of the counter.

The box opened. Two capsules lay quietly inside.

One was a deep, abyssal blue, like the color of the ocean floor; the other was piercingly transparent, filled with white powder.

"This deep blue one is 'Oblivion.' It takes full effect within seventy-two hours of swallowing, surgically and precisely excising every painful memory you have."

"And the transparent one is the 'Antidote.' If you ever decide you don't want to forget, swallow it, and everything will come back."

I stared at the blue capsule as if looking at my only salvation.

"But I left the house in a hurry. I don't have any money on me..."

"We don't take money," he interrupted. "We only take things in exchange."

Exchange?

"What if..." my voice was as light as a sigh, "what if it's my future child? Is that enough for an exchange?"

The deal was made.

I grabbed the deep blue capsule and swallowed it dry. Then, I shoved the box containing the transparent antidote deep into my coat pocket, turned, and walked back into the foggy, rainy midnight streets of London.

The rain was falling harder now.

As I walked toward the alley entrance, the window of a familiar silver Jaguar rolled down.

Under the dim yellow streetlights, Elena Ward's beautiful but frosty face was illuminated.

Her brows were tightly knitted as she looked at me with extreme impatience.

"Get in," she commanded curtly, not even looking me in the eye. "Do you know how long I’ve been driving around this block? Aaron, your behavior right now is incredibly irrational and childish."

I opened the car door and got in.

The heater was on full blast, suffocatingly so, yet it couldn't dispel the chill that had seeped into my bones.

In the backseat, our seven-year-old daughter, Lily, was looking down, playing on her Switch. Seeing me get in, she deliberately shrank to the other side and let out a loud, disdainful "Hmph."

"I don't want to talk to you." Lily's childish voice was filled with a harshness learned entirely from adults. "You're a bad daddy. You don't love Uncle Liam."

I didn't rush to coax the two of them like I normally would.

I didn't apologize, nor did I beg.

I just quietly looked out the window at the fleeing streetscape.

Upon returning home, the moment I walked through the door, my eyes fell on the terrace.

It was supposed to be a canvas of vibrant colors.

A year ago, I had personally transplanted expensive Damask roses and rare blue hydrangeas. Beside my heavy architectural design work, it was the only corner in this suffocating house that truly belonged to me. I watered them, pruned them, and cared for them as if they were real children.

Now, all that remained were streaks of muddy water on the floor. It was completely empty.

"I had the cleaners throw them out," Elena remarked, noticing my gaze. She casually untied her expensive silk scarf, her tone terrifyingly flat. "Liam came over this afternoon and had a bit of a cough. He has leukemia and is still in the treatment phase, so he's very sensitive to smells. It’s no big deal if your plants are thrown away."

I said nothing.

Elena, however, grew even angrier.

"They were just a few potted plants. What's the big deal? Is it that hard to make a little sacrifice for your family's health? Once Liam is better, I'll buy you new ones. Ten times as many, alright?"

Lily stood beside her mother, acting like a brave superhero of justice, shouting loudly, "Yeah! Uncle Liam is so sick, why do you only care about your stupid flowers! I wish Uncle Liam could be my daddy. He never makes mommy mad over little things like this!"

The air froze for a few seconds.

If this had been yesterday, those words would have pierced my heart like a sharp knife.

My eyes would have turned red, and I would have questioned Elena why she allowed our child to speak to me that way.

I would have tried to explain to Lily how much her daddy loved her, only to be met with even more annoyed eye rolls from the mother and daughter, followed by Elena's usual line: "If you weren't so sensitive, the kid wouldn't say things like that."

Yet in this moment, those emotions felt as if they were separated from me by a layer of gauze.

I felt a long-lost sense of relief.

I turned around.

No anger, no sorrow. I looked at them as if looking at two strangers who had nothing to do with me.

"If they're thrown away, then so be it," I said calmly.

My voice was steady, without a single tremor.

Elena's hand, which had been unbuttoning her cuffs, froze in mid-air.

She had prepared a whole speech—about responsibility, about the bigger picture, about how my "emotional outbursts" interfered with her work.

She was even prepared for the condescending way she would comfort me when I lost control.

But her punch landed on empty air.

"What did you say?" She frowned, thinking she had misheard. "Weren't those... didn't you say those were rare breeds you finally managed to keep alive? Just last week, when the cleaner knocked off a single leaf, you were heartbroken for hours."

I took off my coat and hung it on the rack, my movements smooth and natural. "You're right. I'm your husband. I should be more sensible."

I turned my head and looked at the stunned mother and daughter. The corners of my mouth even turned up slightly. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

Elena stared into my eyes. She was searching for grievances, searching for anger, but all she found was a hollow void that made her feel inexplicably panicked.

"I know that, of course. I just think it's weird."

Weird?

I silently looked out the window.

No, it wasn't weird. It's just that none of this mattered to me anymore.