My Secret Lover

Chapter 33

Pov. Park Sunghoon*

Jake and I had been together for over a month by now. We celebrated Halloween together, along with his birthday in November, attended each other's competitions, matches, and tournaments, went on many dates, spent more time together, and definitely grew closer during that period.
And that, although we still kept our relationship secret from everyone, except Sunoo and Riki, which actually still went well. By now we were pros when it came to "secret lovers".

Today Sunoo wanted to meet with Riki and me in a café called Coco Cake, where we could study in a laid-back way because the halls and the other facilities in the university were all occupied on the weekend.
But apparently, the café had no sign and no specific address could be found unless you had hipster radar. Because of this, we searched for it for a long time and even wrote Sunoo several messages.

But this Desert Fox didn't answer us, of course. Who would have thought it?

"If there's a café in this pampa, I'll eat a broom," muttered Riki who was staring thoughtfully at his phone.
We were a bit out of town and standing in front of a residential building.

So that's where the café should be?

"Maybe a surprise party? After all, we both just had our birthdays recently," Riki guessed and pondered. "Unlikely," I said briefly.

My birthday was two days ago on the eighth of December and Riki's was yesterday the ninth. Celebrating birthdays was no big thing for me. Although I went out to eat at a fancy restaurant with Jake and to an arcade with Sunoo and Riki, other than that I never partied much because of the ice training.

Thoughtfully, we searched the nameplate of the said café on the wall with the bells. But apparently, it didn't seem to have one here.
"Are we even in the right place?", I questioned the whole thing. But without hesitation, Riki entered the stairwell, as the glass door was strangely open. I immediately followed him and said uncertainly, "We can't go into other people's apartment buildings."
"Aish, don't be a coward. I'm sure we're in the right place, the navi on the phone never lies!", Riki countered, leaning against the staircase terrain. Astonished, his gaze wandered up and down before he yelled loudly, "Sunoo?!"
"YA! Don't yell, people live here," I reprimanded Riki, but suddenly I could hear Sunoo yelling too. "Riki?! Sunghoon?! Up here!"
"There you go! Told you so, HA!", Riki grinned and together we marched upstairs until we came across the blond-haired boy standing with his hands folded behind his back in front of a closed door.
Skeptically we looked at him.
"What's going on here? Where's the café?", I asked, one eyebrow raised. "Here!"

Ok...?

He opened the door behind him, and the room was dark. Questioningly, we took off our shoes and entered the apartment. Sunoo quickly closed the door so that it was completely dark.

What the hell was going on?

A loud "Surprise!" rang out from all corners of the room. The lights flickered on, and a confetti cannon went off. After that, Jake came over to me and Sunoo to Riki to put a party hat on us, while Jay and Jungwon came up to us each holding a small, personalized cake. Everyone in the room sang Happy Birthday and when the song ended, we blew out the candles.

I wasn't expecting that at this point. Riki was right.

I looked around and saw shining faces. It was a small but cozy group there:

Jake, Sunoo, Jay, Jungwon, Seulki, Namra, Koga, and Taki.

We thanked them warmly, took off our jackets and backpacks, and went to the living room before the cake was cut.