Chapter 2

Adam's POV

The next day, I went to the animal welfare center.

On paper, I was there to return the equipment the wedding planning agency had borrowed earlier for a shoot.

All the volunteers there knew Kristy. They also knew the "boyfriend" featured on that account.

I'd barely set the equipment case down when a young woman sidled over enthusiastically.

"You're Kristy's friend, right? Is she coming today too?"

I shook my head. "I'm just here to return some equipment."

"Oh, I see."

She looked a little disappointed, but she quickly smiled again. "That's fine, as long as Victor's coming. The two of them are always together anyway."

Another volunteer who was feeding a cat chimed in, "Right? Kristy and Victor are literally the model couple around here. They're so sweet together!"

"Oh look! Kristy's boyfriend is here!"

"Hi, Victor!"

Their words made my temples throb with a dull ache. I turned around and saw "Kristy's boyfriend".

Victor Olsen.

He was surrounded by several volunteers, laughing as he said, "Come on, guys. Don't call me that. We're just work partners."

Despite what he said, there wasn't a hint of embarrassment on his face at being misunderstood.

Just then, Kristy arrived, carrying cans of food for the stray animals. She walked naturally over to Victor's side.

The volunteers immediately started teasing them.

"Kristy, you're here to do charity work with your sweetheart again?"

Kristy chuckled and didn't correct them. Not even a single word was spoken.

When her eyes swept across the room and happened upon me, they lingered briefly.

Just then, a representative from one of the sponsors walked over and asked curiously, "Kristy, who's this?"

In that second, my heart still skipped a beat. I couldn't help but wait for her to tell them that I was her fiance.

Instead, Kristy just answered in the most matter-of-fact tone, "A friend. He's handling the video for our wedding."

A friend.

On the eve of our wedding, in front of people who assumed she and Victor were a couple, she'd casually brushed me off as just a friend.

I still remembered how, three years ago, when she'd won a major industry award, reporters and media outlets had swarmed her at the celebration party.

I instinctively wanted to stand by her side, but she pulled me into a corner and said, "There are too many people and cameras here. Stay out of sight for the time being."

Back then, I'd thought she was protecting me in her own way. Only now did I realize that keeping me hidden had always been her long-standing rule—a rule that applied only to me.

In the nearby studio, the livestream was about to start.

Victor's lapel mic was sitting slightly crooked. Kristy walked over naturally, leaned down, and carefully clipped it into the perfect position on his collar.

Her movements were practiced and intimate, as if she'd done it countless times before.

Victor looked down at her.

"That light almost blinded me just now," he whined.

She immediately turned to the lighting technician. "Switch to a soft light. His eyes are sensitive."

Then she began adjusting the camera angle for him, asking him to lean against her shoulder so he could get a feel for the shot.

In that moment, the focus and tenderness in her eyes were the same things I'd seen countless times through her camera lens.

Once the livestream started, Victor pulled something shiny from his pocket and held it up to the camera.

"Ta-da! Check out our custom collab pet tag!"

It was a silver, bone-shaped tag engraved with the name of their account—"KS&VO".

Kristy smiled as she took it from him and personally hung it around his neck.

The live chat instantly blew up.

"OMG! Are they hard launching their relationship right now?"

"My ship is sailing! I've thrown away the anchor!"

I couldn't watch any longer. I turned and walked out.

Once I got home, I opened the cloud drive we shared. In our five years together, we'd been to many places and taken so many photos.

I opened the folders organized by date and started scrolling through them from the day they started that account three years ago.

Folder after folder, thousands of photos and video clips—all of them were of Victor. His smiles, his goofing around, him holding cats, his side profile as he fell asleep leaning on Kristy… Everything had been meticulously organized and preserved by her.

And me? I searched the archive for my own name, but nothing came up. The only proof of my existence in that entire collection was a single unusable shot from three years ago. In that photo, all I got was a shot of her back as she walked away.

Because she'd told me not to take pictures of her.

I'd been by her side for five years.

Yet, in her digital records, I was practically nonexistent.

I shut down the computer and dragged a dusty file box out of the storage room. I had originally bought it for moving into our new home.

But now, I was using it to pack up my past.

My films, my restoration tools, the old camera Grandma had left me… Everything that belonged to me went into the box, one by one.

I didn't explain to Kristy what I was doing. I no longer needed her lens or her validation.

When I logged out of that shared cloud drive, a system prompt popped up.

"You will lose access to thousands of media files spanning the past three years."

Without backing anything up, I clicked "Confirm".