Work Text:
An Zhe and Lu Feng had spent almost a month in the Abyss together, searching for An Ze’s cave.
During that time, they had grown very comfortable around each other. An Zhe no longer wondered what kind of relationship they had. It was good. During the day they would look for the cave, Lu Feng carrying An Zhe when he got tired, and during the night they slept pressed together, Lu Feng’s arms wrapped around An Zhe.
An Zhe loved Lu Feng. He had known it since before he came back, since that one night over three years ago, when he had talked to Pauli and cried from how much he missed Lu Feng.
An Zhe was also quite certain that Lu Feng felt the same way about him.
Lu Feng often kissed him—on his forehead, his temples, his cheeks, and sometimes on his hands. They had also kissed each other on the lips a few times, after An Zhe had tilted his head up and pressed his lips to Lu Feng’s. But each time Lu Feng had pulled away after a while.
It confused An Zhe. Every time it happened, An Zhe’s own body had only wanted to be pressed even closer to Lu Feng, not pull away. Human relationships were still a mystery to him.
They were walking around in a forest that had a beautiful river flowing through it. For a while now, they had followed the river. An Zhe kept glancing at Lu Feng from the corner of his eye.
The way Lu Feng behaved around him was almost too careful. Like he was expecting An Zhe to just run away all of a sudden.
An Zhe wanted to tell Lu Feng that he was not going to run away.
He wanted to tell Lu Feng that he loved him.
But there had not been good opportunities for it. An Zhe also felt that it was difficult. Human relationships and communication were something he was still learning.
Lu Feng must know how I feel by now , An Zhe thought. I hug him and let him hug me. I kiss him and let him kiss me. I read to him in the evenings. He holds me when we sleep at night.
But An Zhe still thought that the things he felt should be put into words and said out loud.
If only it wasn’t so difficult.
Suddenly, an idea formed in his mind.
An Zhe gave it some more thought as he walked, climbing over tree roots and avoiding larger rocks in his path. He cast another glance in Lu Feng’s direction.
Yes, An Zhe decided. He would write a letter and give it to Lu Feng.
It took about a week for An Zhe to find the perfect opportunity to write his letter. That evening, Lu Feng was outside catching their dinner and An Zhe was alone in the vehicle. He was sure Lu Feng wouldn’t be back in at least an hour.
An Zhe sat down at the desk and started writing in the notebook in front of him.
When he was finished, he ripped the paper out of the notebook and put it in his pocket.
An Zhe waited another week to find the perfect moment to give the letter he wrote to Lu Feng.
He was starting to feel like the letter was burning a hole in his pocket, and so he decided to just hand it to Lu Feng one evening. They were inside the car, both sitting against the headboard of the bed, An Zhe reading a book and Lu Feng looking at something on his tablet.
When An Zhe saw Lu Feng put the tablet away, he decided that he would give him the letter. There would never be a perfect moment, so this one should be good enough.
He put his book away and turned to look at Lu Feng.
Lu Feng reached out to ruffle his hair. “You can keep reading, I’m not going to sleep yet.”
There was a slight smile on his face.
Looking at his face—a face he was very familiar with—An Zhe suddenly felt strangely nervous. He thought about the contents of his letter. How would it be received by this person in front of him?
An Zhe swallowed and looked down at his own hands. His throat felt dry and there was a strange tingly sensation in his hands. He ignored it, and put one hand inside his pocket, fishing out the neatly folded letter.
“I have something for you,” he said, stealing a quick glance at Lu Feng’s face from under his eyelashes. “A letter.”
Lu Feng looked at his face, and then at the piece of folded paper in his hand. There was a slightly surprised expression in his eyes.
An Zhe bit his lower lip and furrowed his eyebrows. Then he swallowed once and extended his hand, offering the letter to Lu Feng. There’s no need to be nervous, it’s just Lu Feng, An Zhe tried to reassure himself.
But the things he had written were the most personal, intimate things, and every word in the letter was carefully chosen, meant to represent his sincerest feelings, so it was hard to feel relaxed.
Lu Feng took the letter from him, quickly glancing at him with some curiosity in his expression, before starting to unfold the paper.
Then he started to read the words on the page.
Lu Feng,
I am writing this letter because I feel that trying to describe what I feel out loud is too difficult. Maybe if I write you a letter, I can express more clearly the extent of how much you mean to me.
I know there isn’t that much to say between us—spending every day with you feels easy. There seems to be a silent understanding between the two of us. When I’m with you, everything is easy, safe and comfortable.
But I still wish to say some things, and maybe they are also things that you would like to hear.
Perhaps I should start by stating that mushrooms do not have the kinds of relationships with each other as humans do. When I was a mushroom growing here in the Abyss, I had no parents, no sisters or brothers, no friends or lovers. The only important relationships mushrooms have are with their spores.
But that is no longer the case for me. Ever since I gained access to human genes and a human body, I’ve also received the gift of human emotions. Even though I've already had quite a lot of time to get used to human thoughts and emotions, they are still sometimes a mystery to me.
However, I am very familiar with one feeling. For the longest time I did not know the name of that feeling. It was hard for me to understand, since it always seemed to be accompanied with other feelings. When you were far away, there was sadness and despair, and when you were right next to me, there was happiness.
I know now that what I feel is love.
I hope you already know this, but I will still say the words:
I love you.
Even if these three small words don’t feel enough to convey the extent of what I feel. Some of it feels impossible to describe, no matter which words I try to pick.
I might not be able to describe my feelings as clearly as I would like, but I will still say some things I want you to hear.
I want you to know that to me, there is no one else like you. I want you to know that I want to spend every moment that I have with you. That I will not leave your side.
Even if there’s something that separates us again, I will find a way to be with you again. Even if I have to crawl back from the cold embrace of death a hundred times, a thousand times, I will do it.
Lu Feng, I hope you will be there each time. I hope even more that we will never be separated again.
When your human lifetime comes to an end, I will also cease to inhabit this human body. Instead, I will let my hyphae grow around you, and on you. You will become a part of me and I will become a part of you. I will go to sleep like that, knowing that we will be together forever.
Lu Feng, I want you to know… that even though the ability to feel love was not something I was born with, I will live each day of the life ahead of me filled with this feeling—with the love I feel for you.
An Zhe
An Zhe watched as Lu Feng read his letter. He watched as he paused at certain parts, glancing at An Zhe, eyes slightly widened from surprise. He watched as he read on, his breathing becoming more and more irregular, the hand holding the letter shaking slightly.
An Zhe watched as Lu Feng blinked, his gaze still on the piece of paper, a single tear falling down his cheek. Then, another one, and another. An Zhe watched in surprise and slight worry, the sight of Lu Feng crying something he had never seen before.
An Zhe was going to say something to try and comfort him, but at this moment Lu Feng seemed to finish reading the letter, folding it in half and looking up at An Zhe.
“I…” His voice was a little shaky so he cleared his throat, looking back down at the letter in his hands.
“…I also wrote a letter to you.”
An Zhe’s eyes widened in surprise. Lu Feng wrote a letter to him? He had a difficult time believing Lu Feng’s words, since he had only ever seen him write a few words.
But Lu Feng was already reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out a rather crumpled and old looking piece of paper. It looked like it had been in his pocket for a long time. He handed it to An Zhe, wordlessly.
An Zhe looked at the piece of paper, unfolding it very carefully, as if it were a small, hurt animal and he was trying to avoid causing it more suffering.
To his surprise, he was faced with a full page of text. Lu Feng had only ever written a few words in his work notebook, so An Zhe had assumed he didn’t like writing. But this letter was filled with words, some of it even written in slightly smaller handwriting to fit more text on the page.
An Zhe recognized it as Lu Feng’s writing but it was somehow messier than he remembered, and more difficult to decipher. The words on the paper were also slightly smudged in some places.
An Zhe looked up from the letter and saw that Lu Feng was quietly wiping away his tears.
“I’ve never seen you write more than a few short words in your notebook,” he said, still amazed at the amount of words.
Lu Feng only looked at him, still silent.
An Zhe held his gaze for a moment. Then he looked down at the crumpled piece of paper again and started to read from the beginning.
An Zhe, I miss you.
I thought I missed you before, when you left me in those city ruins. But that was nothing compared to this.
An Zhe stopped reading for a moment. He realized Lu Feng must have written the letter at some point during the past three years. He snuck a quick glance at Lu Feng’s face, but he was met with only his usual, carefully blank expression.
An Zhe lowered his gaze again and continued reading.
I would like to tell you many things, but I can’t anymore. Which is why I’m writing this letter to you. Even if you will never know, I will still have told you.
I wish for you to know how much you mean to me, how special you are to me. You changed my life, my everything.
When we met, the way you looked at me was different from everyone else. Like everyone else, you were afraid when I pointed my gun at you. But there was something else in your eyes too, like acceptance or even indifference. When faced with the dead body of your friend, you had that look in your eyes again. You looked so detached… and yet, sad.
For the longest time, no other person had managed to make me feel anything. Yet in that moment, I felt that I needed to explain. Afterwards, I remember wishing you wouldn’t have looked at me with that quiet acceptance, and had instead looked at me like everyone else—with hatred.
The strange wish to explain myself was soon followed by the wish to do many other things: to spend time with you, to protect you, to hold you close to myself and not let go.
To ignore my orders. To betray my faith and abandon my duty.
In such a short time, you came to mean so much to me. But I’m not sure if I dare to imagine that the reverse is also true. That maybe, for some unknown reason, I was also this kind of person to you.
You said you understand me. That you forgive me. But how can that be true? You had every reason to hate me.
The moment I saw you again, that last moment, you smiled at me. I can see it clearly, it’s burned into my memory. It will keep me up at night, but it is also one of my best memories. It’s the brightest smile I ever saw on your face. At least, in that moment, you were happy to see me. At least, in that moment, we felt the same.
Before, I thought that I would die without having told you how I feel. But then… it was you who died and left me behind.
An Zhe, I love you.
You’re no longer here, so I’m not sure what to do with this love. Pauli said that you’re now everywhere, surrounding us. So I go outside every day to look at the flowers and the trees, to listen to the wind rustling the leaves, and think about you.
Pauli has also said that your spore might grow into you, that you might come back. I’m not sure if I believe him. I will continue to take care of it every day, nonetheless.
I will continue to love you, even if you’re not here. It doesn’t matter if you’re nowhere, everywhere or somewhere far away, I will never stop feeling this way, and I will never forget you.
If some part of you is still around somewhere, I hope you will know how much you mean to me, how much I will treasure every memory I have of you.
Lu Feng
An Zhe stopped reading, the hand holding the letter falling down onto his lap, while he used his other hand to wipe away tears. He had started crying a little over halfway through the letter, blinking away tears, determined to finish reading the letter, even as the words became blurry from the moisture in his eyes.
Lu Feng’s hand appeared, most likely with the intention of helping him wipe away his tears. But An Zhe pushed it away and instead threw himself at him, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him tightly. He pressed his face into Lu Feng’s shoulder, letting out a little sniffle, unable to stop crying.
“Shh, don’t cry,” Lu Feng’s voice said, close to his ear. “Don’t cry, An Zhe.”
His voice sounded calm, like it usually did, but there was a slight tremble that An Zhe could hear, perhaps only because they were so close to each other.
“Shh, it’s alright. You’re here now.”
Lu Feng held him tightly, one of his hands stroking his hair gently. The repeated motion made An Zhe feel relaxed and he eventually stopped crying.
He realized Lu Feng’s shirt was now wet where he had pressed his face, lifting his head.
“Your shirt…”
“I don’t care. It’s just a shirt.” Lu Feng smiled a little, but then turned serious again. “But please don’t cry anymore,” he continued, his voice quiet.
He brought a hand to An Zhe’s face and gently wiped away his tears. An Zhe closed his eyes and let out a small sigh. Next, he felt Lu Feng kiss him on the cheek.
“You were crying too, earlier,” An Zhe muttered. He felt curious, remembering Lu Feng’s silent tears.
“Mm-hm.”
Lu Feng continued to press little kisses onto his face. His cheeks, temples, forehead, his eyelids, his nose. An Zhe let out another pleased sigh.
“I meant every word in my letter,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at Lu Feng.
Lu Feng’s hand was still in his hair, stroking it. His fingers felt warm against An Zhe’s skin as they brushed past his ear.
“So did I,” Lu Feng answered, his green eyes soft and filled with affection.
An Zhe brought one hand up to touch Lu Feng’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb. They spent a moment longer like that, silently looking at each other.
Then, An Zhe leaned even closer to Lu Feng and kissed him. He felt Lu Feng’s fingers continue to stroke his hair, his soft lips curving up into a slight smile before they relaxed again and kissed him back.
They stayed like that, pressed close to each other, exchanging more kisses until An Zhe pulled back slightly and tried to suppress a yawn, resting his forehead against Lu Feng’s. The crying had made him feel tired.
Lu Feng let out a quiet laugh, his hand finding the switch on the reading lamp that was fixed on the wall above the bed. With a light click, darkness descended upon them.
An Zhe waited a moment for his eyes to get used to the dark. He looked at Lu Feng, his features now illuminated by only the light that was let in through the skylight above them. The thousands of stars and the aurora that danced in the night sky cast an ethereal glow on him, making his green eyes glitter. The shades of green matched perfectly, causing the color of his eyes to appear even deeper.
“You should sleep,” Lu Feng said, the hand that was in An Zhe’s hair moving to stroke An Zhe’s cheek. Then, one of his fingers tapped lightly on An Zhe’s nose.
An Zhe didn’t answer right away, instead burrowing closer to Lu Feng and wrapping his arms around him again. He avoided the wet spot on Lu Feng’s shirt and pressed his face into the warm place between his neck and shoulder.
When Lu Feng wrapped his arms around An Zhe and held him there, An Zhe let out a pleased sigh.
“I don’t want to sleep, I want to keep hugging you,” An Zhe finally answered. Despite his words, his voice was soft and sleepy, like he was about to fall asleep any minute.
Lu Feng laughed quietly. “You can continue hugging me while we’re lying down.”
An Zhe only let out a quiet hum, letting Lu Feng rearrange them so that An Zhe was resting comfortably on top of him, the warm blanket covering them both.
An Zhe fought to stay awake for a moment longer still.
“Lu Feng…”
“Hm?”
“I love you.”
An Zhe wanted to make sure Lu Feng knew it. He would repeat the words to him every day, if that meant he would finally believe it.
An Zhe heard Lu Feng let out a quiet sigh and felt him kiss his hair.
“I love you, too.”
Lu Feng’s voice was quiet and warm, the words pressed against An Zhe’s hair.
An Zhe felt that warmth spread through his body, making his sleepy limbs feel lighter for a few seconds. He felt special, like he had received a precious gift.
An Zhe hoped Lu Feng could feel his love, the same way An Zhe himself was now feeling after Lu Feng’s words—safe and warm.
With that thought, An Zhe drifted off to sleep, Lu Feng’s arms around him, one of his hands slowly stroking up and down his back.