When Charlize saw Hugo open his eyes, he didn't speak. She cautiously lifted her gaze and noticed that his eyes were still hazy, unfocused. It was clear he was only half-conscious, and that realization made Charlize quietly sigh in relief.
"Hugo, are you alright?" she asked gently, testing the waters.
Following the sound of her voice, Hugo focused his blurry gaze on her. "Oh, I'm fine," he said softly, nodding. He was simply exhausted. The pain in his head and knee left his whole body weak. Sometimes he wondered if all those years of exercise had done anything at all to fix his battered health.
As Hugo's eyes grew clearer, Charlize suddenly panicked and looked away. In her fluster, she lifted the supermarket receipt in her hand. "So, these are lyrics, right? Something you just wrote?"
Hugo nodded lightly. Charlize continued, half to fill the silence, "What kind of melody are you planning? Something slow and melancholy—maybe piano?"
Hugo chuckled, that faint curve of his lips gently tugging at her heartbeat. "No, no. I wouldn't do that." The mention of music seemed to lift his spirits a little. After a moment of thought, he said, "I think… I'll use a guitar instead. I'll write something bright, even cheerful, to go with it."
Charlize looked completely stunned. "W–what? But… these lyrics—" she glanced down at the paper again, the sad words still vivid before her eyes. "How could that possibly fit?" She couldn't picture it at all. Perhaps that was the difference between her and someone with musical instinct.
Hugo couldn't help but laugh at her puzzled expression, his smile widening. "What, you don't believe me? If you're not worried about waking Alex, you could grab my guitar from the bedroom…" He hadn't even finished the sentence before Charlize leapt up and dashed toward his room. Hugo pressed his lips together and murmured with amusement, "I'll take that as a yes."
Charlize soon returned with the guitar and handed it to him. Half-sitting already, Hugo adjusted his posture, crossing his legs on the sofa. As he began tuning the instrument, his hands moved with easy familiarity. The guitar had always been his closest companion—ten years of shared silence and sound. Every time he held it, his thoughts stilled, and the chaos inside him settled with the gentle vibration of the strings.
Charlize sat quickly back down, her eyes fixed on his fingers as they brushed across the strings. He didn't seem to be thinking—just playing instinctively. Yet each note rang out clear and smooth, spilling into the air like moonlight. Charlize thought it was almost magical.
Within moments, a melody began to form. The simple notes intertwined effortlessly, and it felt as if the silver moonlight scattered across the room had begun to dance in rhythm with Hugo's guitar. The beauty of it was unreal.
Then Hugo began to sing softly:
"The wandering soul leaves a trace of perfume on the pillow.
In a room without a single ray of light, I cannot sleep.
The echo never stops
Time itself seems to halt, pressing down on me."
Hugo's warm, magnetic voice carried the lyrics with a faint smile, and the words that had seemed so lifeless on paper now pulsed with emotion. Under the mingling glow of moonlight and night, they rippled like waves.
Just as he'd said, the brisk guitar rhythm completely contrasted the sorrow in the lyrics. The melody—upbeat, almost waltz-like—felt like something one might hear at a graduation dance: tender, elegant, romantic. Yet when paired with the lyrics' desolate loneliness, the effect was mesmerizing—a bittersweet beauty, like the soft drizzle of rain unfurling under a midnight sky.
"Before I make my decision, I can do nothing.
Will tomorrow bathe everything in sunlight?
When you are near me, when you are here,
I rediscover myself, I find who I am."
As the melody grew brighter, Charlize's lips curved slightly upward. The lively rhythm slipped gently into the chorus, picking up speed. Hugo's voice, smiling within the tune, carried through the air. But when she heard the line 'When you are near me,' a sudden ache spread through her chest. Her lips were still smiling, but her eyes had darkened with melancholy— not gray, not black, but a deep, moonlit blue that seeped from her eyes into her heart.
"A sudden pain, a headache from the glow of the TV—
The dawn bursts forth, and I cannot sleep.
I'm not afraid of anything around me.
Will tomorrow bathe everything in sunlight?
When you are near me, when you are here,
I rediscover myself, I find who I am."
Not all moving songs need to be sorrowful, she realized. Sometimes, sadness wrapped in a smile carries even greater power. It's a quiet ache that grips the heart unexpectedly—a moment where tears shimmer within joy, holding a pain that's both fragile and fierce. The melody of Hugo's guitar seemed to carry that very energy, flowing gently but irresistibly.
"When you are near me, when you are here, I'm like a child.
You are my everything, my all.
In the darkness, I lose myself,
But your presence lights the way.
When you are near me, when you are here,
I rediscover myself, I find who I am.
When you are near, when you are near me,
I rediscover myself—
You are my everything, my all."
Hugo's voice grew brighter, his playing lighter—like he was singing a love song for an anniversary, full of tenderness, contentment, and joy. Yet beneath that joy lingered the unmistakable sadness of absence. The happiness in the rhythm turned blue, steeped in loneliness.
Listening to Hugo's lyrics—"When you are near me, you are my everything, my all"—Charlize realized it wasn't nostalgia; it was a plea. All those sweet, beautiful memories had flowed through his fingers into sound, and once they were spent, silence revealed the truth: she was gone. The present tense "when you are near me" had quietly turned into the past. The melancholy lingered long after the final note faded.
Charlize still wore a faint smile. No tears glimmered in her eyes, but her heart ached deeply. The sorrow hidden beneath the cheerful rhythm danced freely in the moonlight—like a ballerina performing gracefully upon the tip of a knife. The more beautiful the movement, the deeper the pain. The audience could only see the elegance of her dance, never the blood beneath her feet.
After finishing the entire song, Hugo simply sat there quietly with his guitar in his arms, lost in thought. Charlize could see the faint smile at the corner of his lips, but in his clear eyes was a desolate dryness. Still, she knew that, deep inside, Hugo's world was painted blue.
"So, what are you going to name this song?" Charlize finally broke the silence in the room, asking in a deliberately light tone.
Hugo slowly came back to himself, pressing his lips together. "When You Are Near," he said. After a moment of dazed quiet, he murmured softly, "Maybe... I should've used the past tense." Then he stared blankly at the lonely supermarket receipt lying on the table, uncertainty clouding his eyes — and Charlize nearly burst into tears.
She quickly turned her head away, taking two deep breaths to steady herself. Forcing her voice to sound calm, she said, "I think it's fine just the way it is. The song already feels complete — you shouldn't change it anymore."
Hugo looked at her, hesitated briefly, then nodded slowly. "Yeah... let's keep it that way."
He leaned back against the sofa, utterly exhausted, as if the performance had drained every ounce of his strength. Resting his head against the soft cushion, still holding the guitar loosely, he whispered to himself, "It's fine this way... it's fine." Then his eyes gently closed.
Charlize sat quietly beside him without another word. The television still murmured in the background, playing a movie, but the faint noise only emphasized the silence in the room. She stared blankly at the screen, feeling no trace of sleepiness — her mind was empty, thoughts adrift. Yet each time she turned toward Hugo, a flicker of worry surfaced in her eyes.
So much had piled up recently. Hugo had faced challenge after challenge, and she didn't know how long he could keep holding on.
After what felt like a long while, Hugo seemed to drift into sleep. Charlize got up to check on him and noticed an unusual flush on his cheeks, tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead. She reached out and touched his skin — it was warmer than normal. Searching the room, she found a thermometer and took his temperature: one hundred degrees Fahrenheit — a mild fever.
Throughout it all, Hugo remained half-conscious, too drowsy to react.
Charlize remembered how Hugo had mentioned his knee injury acting up earlier, and how he'd been rubbing his aching head. It must've been the sweat and sudden chill from tonight's Los Angeles weather that caused it. Thankfully, his temperature wasn't too high — once he sweated it out completely, he'd probably be fine.
So, carefully, Charlize lifted the guitar from his arms, wrung out a towel, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Then she fetched every blanket in the room and tucked them around him snugly. When she was finally done, she wrapped herself in a soft throw and sat on the sofa beside him — quietly keeping watch as the night passed, waiting for the first light of dawn.
...
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