There was a lot to get used to again. Yet, as Kyuhyun turned the sign hanging on the window pane on the door to Darling Sweets to OPEN, he felt calmer than he had expected to have originally been. Zhou Mi had decided to take a look around the city, to see what had changed he had mumbled, before wandering back to the shop and Kyuhyun had been exceptionally thankful for that after the previous night sharing a bed with his former lover.

 

As he headed back to fulfill the inventory checklist with Eunhyuk, he caught the glaring stare his best friend was suddenly throwing his way. “Yes?”

 

“Are you going to stop with all that fiddling noise you’re throwing out?” The suddenly red headed friend had his arms crossed and was looking from Kyuhyun’s pen which he had seemingly been unawaringly been tapping against the clipboard and Kyuhyun’s surprised eyes.

 

“Oh. I wasn’t aware.”

 

“Everything okay?”

 

He told Eunhyuk of everything that had happened in his home the previous night. How he had told Zhou Mi everything that had happened in Kyuhyun’s life while they had thought Zhou Mi dead. He didn’t have to let his best friend know about how he had cried himself to sleep for the first time in over a year but he had a hunch that Eunhyuk knew it had been something that had happened.

 

“So, what now?” Eunhyuk had taken a few pots and pans out of their perspective areas and arranged the necessary ingredients to get to baking for the day.

 

Kyuhyun sighed and leaned his hip against the counter. “I’m not sure. I think things will just roll out as they go? It’s not exactly like he can go back to his shattered family, alive suddenly.”

 

“But he did that to you.”

 

Kyuhyun stared at the wall for a long, silent moment. “He did.” He looked back at his friend and nodded his head lightly. He felt very unsure of everything. Of exactly how he should feel about Zhou Mi being back from the dead.

 

*****

 

Zhou Mi sat at the edge of a fountain, looking at his reflection through the water. He hadn’t expected for Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk to have seen his wings and wondered if any others did as well. But as he sat people watching around the park, he was passed by just like any other individual there. No special attention paid to him whatsoever. He had woken up that morning with one of his hands recklessly holding on to the back of Kyuhyun’s shirt. It was by sheer luck that he hadn’t woken up glued to Kyuhyun’s back as he had often done so not so long ago.

 

A blue ball suddenly rolled towards him and came to a halt at the base of Zhou Mi’s feet. Having felt the thump of it against him, he looked up to see the young girl running towards him and the ball.

 

“Mister Angel! Could you pass me my ball?”

 

Zhou Mi looked around to see if the girl was talking to someone else and noticed it was him she was referring to. He smiled at the sudden new title and bent down to pick up the ball and placed it on the girl’s hand as she approached him. “Can you see them?”

 

The girl smiled brightly and nodded happily. “They’re so long! Are you new here?”

 

Zhou Mi blinked and nodded in reply himself.

 

“I knew a friend who was like you. His wings were so beautiful.”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

She held on to her ball tightly, suddenly. “He played with me a lot but one day he didn’t come back. I hope he went to play with his family?”

 

Never came back…

 

Watching the girl head back to her mother after having thanked him for the ball, he looked up at the sky as if questioning why he was back here once again for what seemed like the thousandth time.

 

*****

 

Zhou Mi couldn’t help the smile that spread upon his lips when he stared at the new name of the shop. Whether Kyuhyun had meant to have done this, it felt like, through it all, it was an homage to the two of them. To the way that the two often fell upon Kyuhyun’s old and dingy couch. How they both rested, legs crossed over each other and did their perspective own things and struggled so hilariously hard to get up and answer the door if they needed to for a food delivery. One that often ended up with a loud thud from behind closed doors, a very dishevelled person caressing an aching joint that had been injured during such a fall and raucous laughter in the back that wouldn’t shut up as the injured had to answer the door in such disarray.

 

Let’s face it, this was often Zhou Mi who had to answer the door and excuse himself heavily to the delivery guy who in time knew exactly to not fret when the door to that apartment was open. He was even kind enough to offer calling for help if need be but Zhou Mi often shooed him away with a smile on his face and everything was just fine.

 

Zhou Mi fell back onto the sofa - food safely placed in the table in front of them - and laughed into Kyuhyun’s neck, Kyuhyun offered to kiss whatever limb he had injured this time. Zhou Mi often nipped at Kyuhyun’s neck in reply which in turn sent them into a doomed tickle fight that wound up with even more injuries. At the end of the night, one of them would wind up with kisses that lead to moans that ended in a blissed out state of being after all the chaos.

*****

 

The bell to the front of the shop rang and brought Kyuhyun’s attention to a familiar customer who simply smiled and him as she hoped he was having a good day. He served her, as often he did, checked on the display case to make sure all the pastries looked up to par in case there needed to be re-arranging or letting Eunhyuk know that they were out of a certain item.

 

In the back, Eunhyuk all but jumped out of his skin as Zhou Mi made his way in quietly through the back door. He returned the wiggling of fingers that Zhou Mi had greeted him with aside of the small smile.

 

“Do you need any help with anything?” Zhou Mi asked him as he wandered to the wall and grabbed an apron hanging from the hooks and placed it on himself.

 

Eunhyuk wouldn’t help but stare at all the feathers that floated from Zhou Mi’s back.

 

“They don’t usually impair my dressing up for some reason,” Zhou Mi said quietly.

 

“You would think they did,” Eunhyuk mused, biting at his thumb as he took in the sight of Zhou Mi closely.

 

Zhou Mi shrugged and walked towards Eunhyuk, tying a knot to his back to keep the apron properly attached to him. He hovered over the usual book of recipes Eunhyuk had lying in front of him in his cooking table. “Anything I can help with?”

 

Considering him, Eunhyuk sent Zhou Mi to gather more flour and sugars and miscellaneous items to keep him occupied. “How are you doing today?”

 

Zhou Mi had thanked his lucky stars that most of Eunhyuk’s ingredient had been in the same place that he had kept them and remembered them being. He reached up for a container of sugar and placed it on the counter before he turned to look at his old friend. “It’s a lovely day. Some things have changed but mostly everything has stayed the same. I’m glad for not too much change, I think.”

 

Eunhyuk returned Zhou Mi’s tentative smile. “Some things truly never change.”

 

“Did you ever confess to that guy you were so head over heels for?”

 

“Donghae… Yeah, we... didn’t last as much as we probably could have. Maybe. A lot of things had to change so that I could help Kyuhyun deal with everything.”

 

Zhou Mi placed the needed materials in front of Eunhyuk before sighing. “Thank you for that. I’m sorry. I- I’m honestly starting to question if coming back was a wise idea. You are both very well off in your lives and… Didn’t need me to come back into the mix.”

 

The guilt that Zhou Mi had been trying his best to keep hidden away from others had a cracking point. The more he thought of how much Kyuhyun had suffered over the years he was gone, the more he thought that it was selfish of him to think it was okay to come back and hope things to be okay once again. It was just that he hadn’t expected so much time to have come in between everything. Even as he had been told that he would have to re-enter as soon as there was a chance for him to do so.

 

“It was a rough time for all of us, Mi. Your being back feels like a mix of things, but I think you’re back here for a greater purpose. I mean, you don’t just casually send a dead man back and with these,” he said as he prodded at Zhou Mi’s wings and earned a squeak for such an act.

 

“Have you told him you’re sorry?”

 

Gathering his playfully abused wing into himself, Zhou Mi’s crestfallen look only dipped further. “I’m not sure how to. I just- I want to hold him. I want to hug him and tell him how sorry I am about everything. I had a road up ahead there but I didn’t think it right to leave Kyuhyun as I did. Everything was just beginning…”

 

“I’m kinda glad you never got the chance to propose. That would have been extra hard for him to have gotten over.”

 

Zhou Mi gasped at the reminder. “Do you still have it?”

 

Eunhyuk nodded and smiled at the question. “I don’t know what drove me to keep it but it’s still safely guarded. You never know if there’ll ever come a time to try to bring it up to him now, huh?”

 

The two chuckled and got to making the rounds of pastries that were meant for the afternoon and dinner rush. In Zhou Mi’s eyes, it was Eunhyuk who had changed the most, but it was a change that he was definitely very proud of.

 

“You should take these out,” Eunhyuk said, placing a fresh tray of confectionary sweets for Zhou Mi to take. “Just don’t scare the living daylights out of him, okay?”

 

Zhou Mi beamed at him and carefully made his way behind the register. Noticing that Kyuhyun had been busy with a client in the main area, he continued with his duties, placing everything in a neat row and dragging out an empty tray to take back.

 

“I wasn’t aware of any new help being a thing for the shop,” Kyuhyun stated once he was back behind the cash register.

 

Zhou Mi closed the display case behind him and held the tray against his chest tightly. “Well, at least it’s some sort of payment for freeloading, maybe?” Zhou Mi shrugged and smiled lightly, heading back to the kitchen to place the dirty tray in the sink.

 

Kyuhyun, still in a state of shock, followed after Zhou Mi and nodded at Eunhyuk to give them space.

 

“How long do you plan to stay here?” He asked Zhou Mi once he heard the faucet being shut.

 

“I don’t know. Am I bothering you? I can always be elsewhere if you think I’m overstepping in any way.” Zhou Mi turned to face Kyuhyun, his arms crossed at his chest.

 

“You aren’t much in the way, per se, but it’s strange having you back here again. I see you’re being great help for Hyuk though,” Kyuhyun noted, peeking inside of the oven to watch the pieces of bread that were rising with the heat.

 

“Everything’s easy to pick up when your body remembers everything as if it was yesterday.”

 

Hearing Zhou Mi’s chuckle made Kyuhyun’s heart falter. “But you know it wasn’t—”

 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

 

“You don’t have to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”

 

A moment of silence held them in a tense form.

 

“You had to help them all, didn’t you?”

 

The smile crept back on Zhou Mi’s lips slowly. “You know it isn’t in me to refuse help to anyone. There were so many, Kui Xian. A lot of people had wound up crushed as the train had its side. Many didn’t make that fall. I had to make sure to get as many out as I could and… Unfortunately they weren’t far away enough. The other train came out of nowhere and took even more along.”

 

The silence returned but this time, Zhou Mi had made sure to carefully make his way closer to Kyuhyun. “All I could think about was how sorry I was that I never got to spend more time with you. I wished I would have asked you to move in with me sooner. Wished that I would have made that last kiss slightly longer, deeper. Making sure to keep you laughing for a longer time so that I could write your being further into my memory. ‘Did I say I love you to him today? Did I say I love you to him enough?’”  

 

Kyuhyun felt his bottom lip quiver and allowed himself to make the distance shorter between the two of them. A tear fell from his eye as his leaned his head against Zhou Mi’s shoulder. They remained like that. Kyuhyun’s quiet sobs and Zhou Mi unsure of what he should do.

 

“You’ve changed too, Kyuhyun. But there’s so much about you that’s still the same. The way you cherish your customers, the way you smile so easily when you think no one’s looking. Did you know, that’s why I kept coming back at first? You were so endearing and I just wanted to make sure that I would be able to protect your smile.” He allowed himself to run a hand over Kyuhyun’s arm and titled Kyuhyun’s face with it so that they could properly look at each other. “It was never my intention to make you hurt. I hope you know that. Above all, I am the most sorry about making you harden up the way you did.”

 

Kyuhyun sniffed as he struggled to keep the tears at bay. “You’re still the same. You brought everything back with you and I don’t know what to do with it all.”

 

Kyuhyun was scared. Terrified by everything. Especially by the way his heart still called out so heavily for Zhou Mi. He was scared by the way that his body responded at the touch of Zhou Mi’s hand on his cheek. How he wanted to rub his face into that palm and close his eyes and simply—

 

Zhou Mi leaned closer, kissing the top of his head. “You need time. I can give you time. As long as you allow me to lurk in the shadows and keep a spot next to you in bed? I don’t need much to keep going. Just knowing you’re okay and feeling these fluffy cheeks and…”

 

Kyuhyun scoffed at the addition of Zhou Mi’s last sentence. “You always did have the most ridiculous things you liked about me.”

 

“But look at them! They’ve become so squishy!” Zhou Mi said, squishing both of Kyuhyun’s cheeks with his hands. “Get back to work. We can talk more later. I promise to remain a slave to  the stove back here and be out of your way, okay?”

 

“You better not be thinking of usurping my job back there!” Eunhyuk called from the front.

 

The two blinked at each other and laughed. With a quick nod of mutual understanding, they drifted apart. Just for that moment. What waited for them up ahead? Well, that was up to time to see through.

 

---

A/N: This little story. Along with Hurricane (which was my first Qmi), I never really had planned out as much as I have current series plotted out (still not nicely plotted out but I have so many notes for some…). I think it’ll go slightly somewhere but not far enough? Hopefully it doesn’t take me almost a year to update this again. Thank you for sticking by. I think  maybe a couple of chapters and I’ll wrap this up. - S