Working, resting, driving...

However, almost every single photo captured him from a side angle, and in the rare few frames where he was facing the lens directly, his expression was fiercely cold and distant.

Sera noticed the shift in Charles's expression from shock to overwhelming guilt. She raised an eyebrow, her tone laced with impatience.

"That's just junk meant for the trash. If you want it, take it, but stop standing there like a statue. You're delaying my packing."

Charles seemed entirely deaf to her words. He tore his gaze away from the album and looked straight into her eyes, his throat tightening.

"You put this together? When did you take these? Why is this entire album filled with nothing but me?"

As he spoke, his trembling fingers turned to the final page of the collection.

A line of elegant, neat handwriting caught his eye.

Volume One of My Husband's Album is officially complete.

I hope there will be a Volume Two, and I hope that in the next one, he'll smile for my camera a little more.

The moment those words registered, Charles felt as though an invisible hand had gripped his heart, squeezing it with agonizing force.

With every breath he took, a bitter, suffocating tightness rose in his throat.

This wasn't just a photo album; it was a tangible monument to the silent, unyielding devotion Sera had poured into him for years.

Yet he had remained completely oblivious.

He had even complained that she was too clingy, too loud, refusing to give her even a shred of validation.

In that moment, Charles experienced a wave of profound self-loathing.

Why had he treated her with such freezing indifference?

Why on earth had he married her when his heart was completely empty of her?

Sera frowned at his prolonged silence. Just as she was about to snap at him to move, she saw a single tear spill from the corner of his eye.

Charles was crying?

Sera's expression grew complex.

"Charles, as you can see from the timestamps, most of those photos were taken over two years ago. After you made it clear that I was annoying you, I stopped taking them entirely."

Charles's throat bobbed, his voice coming out raw and broken.

"I'm sorry... I was an absolute bastard back then. I had no idea you did all this. If I had known..."

Sera cut him off with a calm, even tone.

"If you had known, you would have used that familiar, disgusted voice of yours to tell me to stop wasting my time on useless things. You would have told me that you hate taking pictures and loathe being watched."

"Stop looking for excuses, Charles. You didn't love me, plain and simple. Who is this dramatic performance even for right now?"

"Don't tell me you're suddenly drowning in regret and remorse. Don't tell me you're about to claim you loved me all along but just didn't realize it until now."

Charles choked, a heavy, suffocating weight pressing down on his chest.

After a long struggle, he wiped away the tear, looking up at her with an expression of intense seriousness.

"Sera, I am so sorry. My regret didn't start today. I regretted everything the exact second I found out you were sick."

"It took losing you to realize exactly what I had squandered over the past five years..."

Charles gripped the album so tightly his knuckles turned stark white.

"I failed you, Sera. I didn't fulfill even the basic duties of a husband."

"I knew how good you were to me, I saw it every single day, but I took it all for granted. I never even offered you a kind expression."

"I shouldn't have taken out my own emotional baggage on you. Looking at the life you've shared online, I finally see how miserable you truly were with me."

"I always assumed that providing for you and fulfilling my legal duties was enough. But it took your illness and this divorce for me to understand that I didn't just lose a marriage; I threw away the only person who ever loved me with a pure heart."

Sera listened to his speech, and then, she laughed. A wave of profound disgust and exhaustion washed over her.

"Charles, I truly had no idea you were moonlighting as a dramatic actor."

"There's no audience here, and no one wants to watch your version of a grieving, devoted husband. Don't try to pull that pathetic 'repentant lover' routine on me. It's sickening."

She gave the nearby trash bin a sharp kick, her expression hardening into pure coldness.

"If you want to play the tragic romantic, go confess to the things in that bin. I'm sure none of it looks unfamiliar to you."

Charles looked down into the bin, his pupils shrinking automatically at what he saw.

The items inside were intimately familiar.

They were all the matching couple's items Sera had lovingly purchased over the years, hoping they could use them together.

Mugs, toothbrushes, slippers...

Charles knelt down, shifting the top layers aside, and found the birthday gifts he had carelessly bought for her over the years.

Items she had once cherished like priceless treasures.

Now, they were tossed carelessly into the garbage.

Charles looked up at her blank face.

"Why did you throw everything away?"

Sera didn't bother hiding the truth, her response clinical. "I was young and blinded by romance back then, treating absolute garbage like treasure. Now that my head is clear, looking at these things only reminds me of how pathetic and foolish I used to be."

Charles felt a sharp, physical pang in his chest.

"Sera, I will assemble the best specialists in the country to treat you. I swear I won't let you die. Please, believe me just this once, cooperate with the medical team, and give me a chance to make things up to you. Please."

"A chance?"

Sera let out a mocking scoff, the revulsion in her eyes completely unconcealed. "I gave you five entire years of chances. Where was this passion back then? Do you think life is a video game that you can just restart when you mess up?"

"I spent years begging for a drop of your affection, praying that you would invest even a fraction of your heart into our home. But I don't want it anymore. I've learned to love myself, and I will never beg for scraps of love from anyone else ever again. So I am begging you, stay out of my life."

"Your guilt, your grand gestures of remorse, and your sudden affection—I want absolutely none of it!"

Charles’s face turned deathly pale, his lips moving but no sound escaping, completely paralyzed by her words. He could only offer a weak, desperate murmur.

"I truly want to make it up to you..."

"I don't need it," Sera finalized, dropping the last set of files into her box. "I'm packed. We are completely settled, so delete my number and never approach me again."

With that, she hoisted the heavy box into her arms, stepped past his frozen form, and walked straight out of the room.

The moment she swung the apartment door open, she found herself face-to-face with Chloe's smiling face.

Outside the threshold, Chloe stood with her hand raised, clearly about to knock.

But the moment her eyes fell upon Sera, the sweet smile vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp glare.

"What are you doing here?"

Sera paid her no mind, her voice entirely flat.

"Move."

Chloe's expression darkened, but before she could bark a response, she spotted Charles rushing out behind Sera. Instantly, she rearranged her features back into a sweet, soft smile.

"Charles! I happened to be in the neighborhood, and when I heard from the hospital that you took the day off, I wanted to drop by and check on you."

"I brought some strawberries you like."

Charles didn't even glance at her, his eyes locked entirely on Sera.

"Sera, let me drive you."

"No."

With a sharp shove, Sera shoulder-checked Chloe, knocking her out of the doorway, and walked straight into the elevator.

Chloe let out a sharp cry of surprise, rubbing her shoulder as she turned a victimized, tearful gaze toward Charles.

"How can she act like that? She has absolutely no manners."

But Charles didn't even acknowledge her existence; he bolted down the stairs in his slippers, desperate to catch up with Sera.

Chloe's lips thinned into a hard, furious line. In a fit of rage, she slammed the container of strawberries onto the ground.

Bright red juice splattered across the floor.

A second later, she stormed down the stairs after him.

Ten minutes later, Chloe found Charles standing beside his car in the parking lot of Sera's new apartment complex, looking entirely hollow and defeated.

She marched over, grabbing his arm aggressively.

"Charles, she's practically on her deathbed! Why are you still degrading yourself by running after her!"

Charles violently shook off her grip, his eyes flashing with a dangerous coldness.