HUMAN | YUWIN [ ✓ ]

TWENTY-FOUR | A NORMAL LIFE

two years later...

sicheng looks up, seeing the little sign on the front door, saying 'hello' in chinese with wonky but charming characters written by yuta. he smiles at it. home. this place has been home for two years now.

when he pushes the door open and walks inside, he says, "i'm home!"

usually, he's greeted by yuta pulling him into a hug, talking in chinese in his noticeable accent that he has. instead, he was in the kitchen, wearing an apron as he took something out of the oven. "hold on, i'm just...."

"are you baking?" sicheng asks. judging by the sweet smell in the air, he was right. yuta looks over his shoulder to nod. his dark hair was still long as ever, though yuta made sure to regularly get it get so his short ponytails stayed short ponytails.

"yes, i wanted to make something for when you got home," yuta says, placing a tray of four muffins on the counter. that means that there's at least two for the both of them, but yuta might end up eating three because sicheng doesn't like to eat more than he feels like. unless yuta convinces him to at least split one or save it for him.

"i made two for ten and johnny, too," yuta adds with a smile. "i invited them over for a bit!"

sicheng nods and takes a muffin off of the tray. maybe he'll eat a bit of it, despite not being in the mood to eat, as usual. bad habits are hard to get rid of, really. sicheng still remembers before this life he loves, he took a bad beating once — he managed to come out victorious — and his eating became less and less, until he had a period when he didn't eat at all. the only person he would listen to about eating was yuta. that made him realise perhaps that definitely wasn't good for him.

he peels a bit of the liner to take a bite out of it. sure enough, yuta's baking shines once more. of course it was going to taste amazing. yuta had gotten better with baking over the course of the past year, since he really has nothing else to do. sicheng's the one with a job — working for an old friend that didn't forget him, to his surprise — and yuta took pleasure in caring for their little flat in the city.

"when are they coming?" sicheng questions after swallowing.

"soon, i — " yuta pauses as he takes his oven mitts off, searching for the right word he wanted to use. " — think. i called them a while ago."

"ah," sicheng nods. "i'm missing my usual hug."

"oh!" yuta says, clapping his hands together before giggling. "i didn't forget!"

he walks around the counter to pull sicheng into a hug and peck his cheek lovingly. sicheng smiles as his eyes close contently. he loves this life they have. he would never change it for anything. sicheng never felt so... happy before until he came back to china and started a life with his boyfriend, yuta. at one point, he never considered having a relationship nor living a life he actually liked. but here he is now.

as yuta presses his lips onto his cheek again before giggling, a knock sounds against the front door. sicheng's boyfriend pulls away, saying, "that must be them!"

his hands slide from sicheng entirely as he runs over to answer the door, revealing johnny and ten on the other side. johnny greets him with a smile and wave. his was completely normal, but ten's smile seemed weird. it was like his face still wasn't quite sure how to genuinely smile at someone that wasn't johnny. not even yuta is immune to this, much less sicheng. even if he and ten get along somewhat now, they still hardly act like friends.

"i only came because you mentioned muffins," ten says. the only notable appearance change he had was that his hair was long, the blond fading into black. johnny's, on the other hand, just went back to a nice brown colour and still long as ever.