Title: I Give My 4 Years to You
The smell of red bean mochi lingered in the air.
It’s been a month since, the war had ended, but the calm felt unnatural.
The cicadas cried in the trees surrounding the cemetery.
Two men stood before endless gravestones.
Neither wore the demon slayer corp uniform anymore, but the weight of battle still clung to them.
Shinazugawa Sanemi rested one hand on the hilt of his sword, though there was no enemy left to fight. The habit had never left him.
Beside him stood Tomioka Giyuu. His arms were folded inside the sleeves of his light blue haori, his gaze fixed on the mountains beyond the cemetery. His eyes looked as if they held pain beyond his years.
They had survived battles where even those stronger than them had perished.
They had buried friends with their own hands. They had held their loved ones as their loved ones took their last breath.
And somehow, almost as if it wasn’t real, but all a dream,they had both lived.
Sanemi scoffed softly.
“Strange.”
Giyuu doesn’t look at him, still staring at the mountains and the vast sky.
“What is.”
Sanemi looks at Giyuu.
“Who would have thought that it would ever end. I’ve always thought that I would die. That I was going to have to put my life down in order to achieve victory.”
Giyuu finally looks at Sanemi
“You tried hard enough to make that happen. Always recklessly jumping into battle, and sustaining injuries.”
Sanemi snorts.
“That was strategy.”
Giyuu in a flat voice.
“That was stupid.”
Their arguments had once been legendary amongst demon slayers.
Two Hashiras equally skilled.
Equally stubborn. Equally unwilling to admit the other was right. Although there was begrudging admiration between them. Because despite all their arguments, neither could really deny the talent of the other.
The other Hashiras used to joke that if the demons didn’t kill them, they would eventually kill each other. Who would have ever thought that they would be the two survivors.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally Giyuu said,
“So.”
Sanemi echoes his words.
“So.”
Both of them had been having the same symptoms.
The coughing.The blood.
The doctor’s quiet voice telling them that they didn’t have much time. Only a few years left. Four years, perhaps.Maybe less.
Sanemi laughed under his breath.
“All those battles,” he muttered. “And it’s sickness that finishes us. All because we awoken our marks.”
Giyuu sighs.
“We were lucky.”
“Lucky?”
Giyuu nods.
“We survived the war.”
Sanemi looks at the graves once more, staring at the names written on them.
Each one engraved with names of the other Hashiras.
Men they had fought beside. Men who had never returned home.
Sanemi wonders if they were truly the lucky ones.
“…Everyone else didn’t,” Sanemi said quietly.
Giyuu said nothing.
Because it was true.
There had once been 9 of them.
Now only two remained.
Sanemi rubbed the back of his neck.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I used to think I hated you.”
Giyuu raised an eyebrow.
“Used to?”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand,” Sanemi said dryly. “You’re still unbearable.”
Giyuu scoffs.
“Likewise.”
But there was no real bite in their voices anymore.
Just the echoes of old habits.
Sanemi looks up at the sky.
“Feels stupid now.”
Giyuu frowns slightly.
“What does.”
“All of it,” Sanemi says. “The arguments. The competition. Trying to prove who was stronger.” “I don’t know….,” he shrugged. “It’s just that after we both have survived the same hell, when I look at our past now, I think all our pointless arguments feels stupid now.”
Giyuu chuckles.
“Um, I agree.”
The wind carried the distant sound of a temple bell.
Giyuu exhaled slowly.
“Four years.”
Sanemi nodded.
“Four years.”
Giyuu tilted his head.
“You ever think about what you’ll do with it?”
Sanemi answered immediately.
“No.”
Giyuu shakes his head.
“Of course you haven’t.”
“What about you?”
Giyuu scratches his chin.
“I was thinking… maybe we stop being idiots.”
Sanemi gave him a long look.
“Whats that supposed to mean?”
Giyuu grinned faintly.
“We spent so many years trying to kill the same enemies.”
“Yes?”
“And we spent so much time trying to outdo each other.”
“Yes?”
Giyuu gestured between them.
“Now there’s no war.”
“Yes?”
Giyuu points to the gravestones all around them.
“And no one left.”
Sanemi’s expression shifted slightly.
Because that part hurt.
Giyuu gives Sanemi a gentle look.
“…Just us.”
For the first time in a long time, Sanemi’s voice softened.
“…Yes.”
A moment of silence past.
Sanemi laughed quietly.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“What is.”
“I spent years thinking you were the one person I couldn’t stand.”
Giyuu looks at him.
“And now?”
Sanemi shrugs.
“Now you’re the only one left who understands.”
The words hung between them.
Heavy.
Honest.
Giyuu looks at the ground.
“…I suppose that is true.”
Sanemi turns around and starts walking away.
“Well then.”
Giyuu frowns.
“Well then what.”
Sanemi looks back at him with a crooked smile.
“If we’re dying anyway,” he said, “we might as well stop pretending we hate each other.”
Giyuu snorts quietly.
“That may be difficult.”
“Why?”
Giyuu smirks. In a joking tone he says,
“Because sometimes I still do.”
Sanmei laughs.
“Hey! You’re the one who was just saying that maybe we should stop being idiots.”
Giyuu laughs.
Then, after a moment,
“…I’m afraid you might disappear.”
Sanemi blinks.
That was the closest thing to affection Giyuu has ever said.
Sanemi grins.
“Careful,” he said. “People might think you like me.”
Giyuu turns toward Sanemi.
“…Let us not go that far.”
Sanemi and Giyuu begin walking out of the cemetery side by side.
Four years remained.
Four years to wander a place finally at peace.
Four years to remember the people they had lost.
Four years to discover that beneath years of rivalry and stubborn pride, there had always been something else waiting between them.
Something quieter.
Something deeper.
Something that neither of them yet dared to name.
But with death already walking besides them, there was no longer any reason to run from it.
Sanemi grabs Giyuu’s hand. A silent understanding settles between them.
If they only had 4 years left, they wish to live it in happiness with no regrets.
-THE END
*posted on ao3