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They became one, of course. That is what made sense to do. That is what he always told Lu Feng he would do.
Lu Feng’s skin was like paper, bone brittle and old, the little hair that remained gray and thin. His breath rattled when he sucked in air, voice barely a whisper, and then even that whisper and that rattle was gone.
Only a handful of people knew who An Zhe truly was, these days. It was better that way. He was just a little mushroom, and he didn’t need the attention that came from people knowing the truth. The ones that did know the truth were told about Lu Feng’s death, were allowed to see him one last time, and then An Zhe left.
An Zhe had never spoken to them of what would happen next. It didn’t matter. Not to them. It was just him and Lu Feng, now, and Lu Feng knew what would happen.
He took Lu Feng with him. He nestled in his rib cage, covered every inch of that papery skin, wrapped around his heart until it absorbed into him. An Zhe was Lu Feng’s lungs, now. He was his heart. His mind. His hands and his arms, his rattling breath and his fading green eyes, the quirk of a smile only An Zhe got to see, the fire that burned between them when they laid together at night, the fingers that hadn’t pulled a trigger in so long and the feet that couldn’t move him for some time.
An Zhe was all of them. He wasn’t alone. He wrapped him and Lu Feng up, deep in the caves, deep where no one would disturb them.
He wasn’t alone.
But it was quiet.
Time passing means nothing to a little mushroom and the one who he keeps with him. To him and Lu Feng, it doesn’t matter if it has only been a few days or a few years or a few centuries. An Zhe doesn’t keep track, and doesn’t even consider keeping track. He nestles Lu Feng with his hyphae and he grows and he expands and he remains there.
He does, at least, until humans find him.
An Zhe hears them before he sees them, because he isn’t watching and he isn’t caring, just resting. Human explorers, or perhaps foragers, looking at him with wide-eyed wonder. He must be quite big, then, but he thinks maybe he’s only big for a little mushroom. It feels weird to think of himself as a big mushroom now, even if he is a big little mushroom, so he doesn’t.
He looks at the humans, and that’s when he has to watch. There are three. Two of them An Zhe doesn’t know, and they don’t look familiar to him. They are humans, and while it is fine to see humans again, he doesn’t feel any want to speak with them.
The third human is Poet.
It doesn’t make sense. Poet is very long dead and very long gone, and while An Zhe liked Poet quite a lot and thought he was quite good, Poet was not the kind of ‘quite good’ to be able to still be here, so many years later, as if he has never changed. No - he has changed. He looks younger, somehow, and that does not make any sense.
An Zhe watches them, and does not let them find Lu Feng, creeps out as aggressively as a little mushroom can when they approach him, and they end up leaving him alone. There are no samples taken, this time, and An Zhe is glad to see them go because they have made him very confused and very thoughtful.
Poet is out there, somehow. He thinks of his own spore, and how his spore was him and that was how he came back, and he wonders. Maybe for humans… maybe there could be similar, now?
He had changed them all, after all. When An Zhe had changed them, he thought Poet had been dead, but maybe Poet hadn’t been dead or An Zhe had changed his body or…
An Zhe didn’t know. There was a lot, and he wanted to ask someone who knew things like this, like Dr. Ji or Pauli, but they’re not here anymore. Or maybe they are, now, because Poet is.
He thinks on it for a long time. He isn’t sure how long, but he thinks on it until humans come again. This time, An Zhe is ready and has thought enough that he has a plan. They sleep nearby, which is probably dangerous but they seem a prepared group, and one of them keeps watch. He isn’t keep a close enough eye on the mushroom which has done his best to seem harmless, and that is why An Zhe is able to very, very carefully stretch out his hyphae and drag a bag into the depths of him.
When they wake the next morning, they’re all very confused. They don’t solve it, either.
An Zhe waits patiently until they’re gone, until it has been long enough that he doesn’t think they’re returning for any reason, and then he carefully forms himself. He pulls his hyphae back in and he becomes human-looking again for the first time in a long time. There is no water to look at his reflection, no mirror to check what he looks like, but he knows he still looks like An Ze.
He likes that. He will always look like An Ze, and An Ze will never be lost.
Lu Feng will never be lost, either. An Zhe goes through the bag and reorganizes it. He casts out many unnecessary things, keeping the supplies and the food, and then he puts Lu Feng in the bag. Never again will he leave someone behind he wants to keep, and never again will he be parted from Lu Feng, and so every piece of Lu Feng is carefully wrapped up and placed gently in the bag.
It’s time to return to humans, to people, to see if there are familiar faces. Familiar people. An Zhe holds Lu Feng’s skull in his hands, and looks down to where those cold green eyes used to be. “It’s my turn,” he says quietly, because as Lu Feng once took care of the spore that was An Zhe, he will find the ‘spore’ that is Lu Feng.
He places the skull gently on the top, closes the bag and puts it on his back, and leaves.
Someone is watching him. Or at least, Lu Feng feels like someone is watching him.
He’s always been observant, always had a strange sort of attention to detail that excites some people and confuses others, the things he can see and the things he cannot.
It means he notices when someone starts following him, starts watching him. The settlement is small, small enough that Lu Feng should know if someone knew has arrived, but no one has. Does that mean it’s someone he knows, one of the couple hundred that all live clustered together? Or is it some odd creature from the outside, a xenogenic that has crept inside and is observing him for whatever reason?
Lu Feng doesn’t feel like he’s in danger. He doesn’t feel like there’s a threat. And yet…
He tells a coworker to let his sister know that he is going out hunting, and he does so. The presence follows him. Lu Feng feels the eyes, the gaze lingering on his back. It’s why, after some time, he stops.
He pauses for a moment, waiting. “I know you’re there,” he says.
There’s a minute or so of nothing, of waiting and staring at nothing because he’s not entirely sure where the source is, before a bush rustles and a young man steps out. He’s never seen him before. Lu Feng knows this. He is not of their settlement.
And yet… and yet…
“I’ve been looking for you,” says the young man, and Lu Feng can’t take his eyes from him.