Fixed a type error introduced in issue #28992.
diff --git a/Lib/email/_encoded_words.py b/Lib/email/_encoded_words.py
index 32a1fa2..c40ffa9 100644
--- a/Lib/email/_encoded_words.py
+++ b/Lib/email/_encoded_words.py
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
 
 # regex based decoder.
 _q_byte_subber = functools.partial(re.compile(br'=([a-fA-F0-9]{2})').sub,
-        lambda m: bytes.fromhex(m.group(1)))
+        lambda m: bytes.fromhex(m.group(1).decode()))
 
 def decode_q(encoded):
     encoded = encoded.replace(b'_', b' ')