Love/Hate (Lemon GarouxReader 🍋)

Sleeping With Ghosts (Part 1)

Author Note:

Hello!

Long time no see! Well, here it is. I have decided that it's time for me to continue and finish this story. I last made an update exactly a year ago before my health turned so badly for the worse. And today I'm publishing the next part, exactly a year later. It's a pure coincidence but an auspicious one I think!

With Garou's arc wrapping up in the manga and having thought and rethought the ending of this story for a while I have decided that it's time to bring this story home, even if my health still isn't 100% because I don't want to let this story go. It means way too much to me.

So I have decided to continue writing and publish in shorter chapters and hopefully more frequently. Previously I was publishing quite long chapters with long breaks in between. Now, I have broken the chapters down into parts and will publish them this way because it is easier and more calming for me. So I hope you don't mind that the chapters won't be their usual extra long length!

Also, I'll be borrowing events from the manga but using them in my own way and changing some of them around, just letting you know that in case anyone was expecting a strictly canon ending. I'm using the manga events to give this story the most satisfying and best ending for Garou and Y/N ^.^

I'm very happy to get back into this and I'm hoping to publish the next part not too long later but please do excuse me if I do take long breaks because things are just unpredictable for me at the moment.
Thank you so much for sticking with me. You all have no idea how much your support, your comments, you guys getting in touch has meant to me.

Lots of love

xoxo

-LaReinette

P.S. The name of the chapter is the name of a Placebo song. You guys know me, Placebo addict for life XD

~*~

You stand in your doorway, mind swinging violently between frustration, fear and incredulity, staring down the empty hallway. Surely he'll reappear any moment now, come back up those steps and join you and Ryo for lunch, as usual, as he's been doing for weeks, a part, an indispensable part, of your family now. You feel as if in some sort of fog, lost and confused. You wait moments longer and it feels like an eternity. Finally, when there's no sight nor sound of him you snap out of it, slam the door shut and quickly make your way to the other side of your apartment, to the kitchen window.
You can see him disappearing and fast down the sidewalk, taut, strong body a display of complete determination, that familiar back, a man on a mission... You push the window open, are about to yell his name out. But then stop.
What if he doesn't turn around? What if you call out his name but he keeps walking, down the road, out of your life? The way he carries himself is troubling. A body language you have not seen for a very long time.
Your hands tighten around the window frame. You don't know what to do. The tears sting as you force them back. All his words, his actions seemed so serious, so final. What in the hell-
"Onee-chan?" You hear Ryo's quiet, concerned voice behind you. "What are you doing?" He asks, confused, looking up at you with his innocent worry.
You flick the beads of tears out of the corner of your eyes before turning around back to him.
"Oh, nothing," you say, trying to sound as bright as you can, pulling the window shut just as you glimpse Garou disappearing around a corner, not to be seen again.
"Where's Garou onii-san?" Ryo looks around, puzzled at the unexpected absence. Usually, he'd be right here with you.
"He had to go home today," you say, keeping your tone even, trying a little too hard to sound casual, like it's no big deal, completely normal. Smile. Smile, you instruct yourself as you look back at Ryo. "I think he had something important to do."
"Oh," Ryo says, a little deflated. "I wanted him to stay so we could finish the dojo," he says and runs over to the partly finished Lego structure between the couch and the television. "What's for lunch?" He looks up at you eagerly, having accepted your explanation without question, this unbreakable trust he has in you. You feel something stab at your chest.
"I'll just heat up some dumplings," you say quickly as you go over to the sink to wash your hands, glancing out the window, a sliver of hope that you'll see Garou making his way right back down that road towards you, having changed his mind, an explanation at the ready. But no such luck. No such luck at all.
In fact, it feels like all your luck has suddenly run out.