Reincarnated as a Perfume Mogul with a Dark Past

"A scent is a memory. A memory is a ghost."

The first thing he notices is the air.

Thick, sickening, tinged with something sweet and something unnatural. It slowly seeps into his lungs, strolling through his veins, like a whisper of silk and strangulation. The scent is familiar but not at the same time. It shouldn't be here. It shouldn't exist.

He tries to move.

His fingers twitch grasping the emptiness. His limbs are heavy with a numbness that should horrify him but all he can focus on is the perfume curling in the darkness. A scent laced with memory, wrapped in death.

Then the pain comes.

A crushing weight in his chest. There is a slow, creeping cold beneath his skin. A heartbeat that stutters, slows. Distantly, he is aware of voices—soft, cautious whispers fading into the silence. Someone is speaking. Maybe it's his name. A question. Or a verdict.

He tries to open his eyes.

A ceiling stares right back at him. Dark wood, carefully polished to an unnatural glow reflecting the dim glow of a chandelier above. Not the cold light of a hospital. Also not the marble and steel of a corporate boardroom.

Not where he died.

Because he remembers clearly.

The moment of death is not something the mind can even forget, not even when torn from one body and placed into another one. He remembers the taste of blood flooding his throat. The suffocating force of hands pressing him down and stealing his very last breath. The scent of betrayal clinging to the air, both thick and unmistakable.

Now this.

This body… This name… This life that should not be his.

A door creaks open softly.

Footsteps—slow and deliberate. A heavy presence looms nearby, sharp and analysing. Then, a voice, clearly rich with amusement and something colder under it.

"So, you've finally woken up."

Leon von Edevane.

That is the name they expect him to answer to. The name sewn into the embroidered silk of his robes and engraved into the delicate gold of the cufflinks at his wrists. The name that should be the name of this body—the heir of a perfume empire, a man who lived his life deeply steeped in luxury and waste.

But he is not that guy.

Not truly.

He is something else, someone else. A ghost occupying a stolen shell, a spirit pulled from the abyss with questions he doesn't have the ability to answer.

Why is he here?

Who brought him back?

And most important of all… what scent lingers in the air around him, haunting him like the whisper of a past he was never meant to escape?

Leon does not move. He does not say anything. Instead he just draws slow and deep breathes, letting the fragrance settle fill him. It is complex, multilayered—notes of bergamot and jasmine woven with something deeper and darker beneath it. A signature scent one specifically crafted with intention.

A perfume made to manipulate the mind.

His lips curl into the lightest ghost of a smile.

Interesting.

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The city hums with life below him, a restless pulse of glass towers and golden lights stretching far into the night. From the balcony of the Edevane estate Leon watches the world below with one hand casually twirling a crystal glass filled with golden liquid.

The air carried the scent of rain—clean and sharp also tinted with the faintest whisper of smoke from the burning cigar in the ashtray beside him. Well, it is not unpleasant.

But it is not his.

The wind shifts. A new fragrance slips through the air. Something foreign. Something wrong.

He does not turn.

"How long are you going to just stand there, Ezra?"

The silence stretches before a quiet sigh. Footsteps approach slowly, stopping just at the edge of his vision.

"You're different," Ezra Falk says.

Leon smiles. "Am I?"

"You don't drink," Ezra murmurs, his eyes flicking to the untouched alcohol in his hand. "You don't stand still this long. And you sure as hell never watch the city like this."

"Observation is a very useful skill," Leon ponders. "You should practice it more."

Ezra does not respond.

But the weight of his stare presses against his skin, heavy with something very close to suspicion.

Good.

Ezra Falk had despised the past Leon von Edevane deeply. The spoiled, reckless failure of an heir who had wasted his inheritance on extravagance and arrogance.

Leon lets him watch, lets him search for something familiar in the man before him.

He will find nothing at all.

Because the Leon von Edevane he had once known is dead and gone.

And in his place, a man with a borrowed face and a stolen second chance stands, playing a game far more older and far deadlier than anyone in this city can even understand.

Ezra tilts his head slightly. "What are you planning?"

Leon exhales slowly and steadly, letting the scent of the night settle calmly in his lungs.

"Everything."

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The laboratory is cold.

Glass bottles line the walls in perfect order with each one labeled in a precise hand. Rows of neatly arranged droppers, distillers, and delicate instruments sit in quiet preparedness. A single candle flutters in the corner casting elongated shadows across the marble countertops.

Leon stands in the very centre with the scent of raw ingredients whirling around him in a thrilling mix of potential and strong danger.

A vial rests between his fingers.

Inside, an almost colourless liquid glows under the light—unassuming, but still very lethal.

The formula is nearly complete.

He remembers the process, the exact ratios, the way each element weaves together to create something both beautiful and horrifying. It is not just a perfume.

It is control... Perfect control.

A weapon hidden in elegance. A whisper of influence no one will ever suspect.

And once, a whole lifetime ago, he had destroyed it.

The Perfect Scent.

Now, the question hangs faintly in the air, heavier than the fragrance he holds in his hands.

Will he destroy it again?

Or will he finally finish what he had started?

The candle's flame slightly wavers with the scent of melting wax swirling through the room.

Leon breathes in deep.

And smiles.