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Two stones, lay next to eachother, different names engraved on them, yet both coffins containing the same thing -- emptiness.
Two stones, two coffins, one emptiness and one man, scarred, tall and white-haired, his purple eyes dullened as they'd scour over the gravestones, reading the names on them.
Genya Shinazugawa.
Muichirou Tokito.
Both boys had died in the infinity castle, during that fateful battle against Kokushibou, who'd eventually been finished off by himself and Gyomei, who'd later met a similar demise than the two boys. Perhaps it was a more merciful demise, having a body left to salvage, and the comfort of knowing his death wasn't in vain as he'd slip away.
Muichirou and Genya would never live too see Muzan's death and the Corps' success, nor would they be able to rest in the newer, safer, world they'd helped achieve, their bodies lost to the wind and the infinity castle's collapse, succumbing to a familiar sudden death, assuming the other's safety.
The whispers amongst his fellow hashira, long gone, had finally begun to make sense. Whispers of romance, somehow not between Obanai and Mitsuri, who were buried together a short distance away, but of their youngest hashira. Rumours of his partner being a rogue, hot-headed boy possessing a mohawk, a gun, and no breathing style.
It seemed almost as romantic as it was devastating that they'd died together in such a way.
Sanemi Shinazugawa never cried - he hadn't cried when he killed his mother, or when Kanae perished to an uppermoon, leaving his heart heavy and yearning. He had only let his bitter tears fall that mortifying moment Genya would dissolve into nothingness, an effect of that godforesaken ability of his, leaving him utterly and completely alone. Yet he was, once again, brought to tears as he stared at the grave before him, breath shaky, knowing its coffin was empty, only symbolic of his brother and Muichirou's sacrifice.
Genya was gone, and there was nothing Sanemi could do. He couldn't apologise for how he'd mistreated him, or how he'd insulted and dismissed his brother when he was needed most, selfishly blinded by his own bitter grief and resentment.
Maybe if he had come faster, or if he were stronger, Genya and Muichirou wouldn't have had to fight as much as they had. Maybe he would've been enough to slay Kokushibo.
Yet life had never been fair for Sanemi Shinazugawa.
Sanemi Shinazugawa never cried.
But he cried that final day of his life - the eve of his twenty-fifth birthday... He would succumb to the after-effects of his slayer mark by morning. Despite the wife he'd managed to acquire, and the children he'd manage to have in the short 4 years he had left, Sanemi Shinazugawa had died a man with regrets.
He died a man with an unspoken apology on his tongue, and the heavy weight of a young love on his conscience.