My Seoul Man

Chapter 9

Ronnie turned like he felt us coming. The other people standing and sitting behind those hula hips kind of smiled, too, when we arrived.

No doubt waiting to see what would happen as Ronnie slid an arm around his wife's waist and said, "Slow your roll, sis. Remember when she told us how it's your legs that make your hips do that?"

Yoli smirked and said, "So?" Never one to feign her feelings, Yoli...

And Hula Hips smiled and said, "That cute one can do it, though—give the ladies a thrill! Go on!"

She meant K-pop King, course, who hung back trying to get a read on my feelings. But all those brazen hussies around us started whistling and clapping and hyping him up until he kind of had to wiggle his way out of it.

She'd taught him to throw it like those Pacific Island guys you see on YouTube sometimes, at those traditional dance competitions they have. Less jiggle, more "bump." He even dropped it a little bit, his dancer muscles driving those thighs.

"Dude out here shamin' all us old guys got bad knees and shit," Ronnie said. "We know you got mad rizz, Junior. Just leave the rest of us a few crumbs when you're done eatin', okay?"

The ladies kinda rolled their eyes but they laughed, too. And when AJ put a hand in the small of my back as if to apologize to me for that little demonstration, I got that little shivery feeling cause...

Okay, the bump and grind got me all hot, yes. That hip-popping hula stuff was way wilder than the pretty, precise K-pop choreo I'd seen him work through online.

So, I was just real glad he distracted everybody from me getting all melty by telling us, "I actually took a class that taught us all these traditional dance moves from all over the world that still show up in hip hop and everything else. You feel it way deep down when you move that way. The audience, too, actually. Because our bodies remember those moves."

"It's like how some of the stuff they do here looks like what my mother's people did, those Ainus," Lana said. "Cause it's like he says. Our bodies just like to move certain ways."

"I learned about Japanese tribes when I took this high school Native Studies class fulla kids tryin'a figure out who the fuck we really were," Ronnie said. "I was kinda shocked how the regalia and whatnot looked so familiar."

Lana took a lock of her long, thick hair and tied the rest of it into a ponytail with it very neatly and efficiently. "Charlie's great-grandfather used to tell him stories about all the people who had come to this country here from over that way. And how they became all the tribes here."

I smiled because that explained Charlie's "choice," of course...

And Yoli said, "Does it look familiar to you, too? What you see at all the gatherings?" With real interest, now that Lana had shamed us big time.

"Pretty familiar. But every tribe calls itself 'The People,'" (She gave us air quotes for that, BTW) "in their own language. And they all believe where they live is the center of the universe, too. So, I don't compare us unless they're curious enough to ask me about it. That way they don't get all mad at Charlie for bringing me."

Yoli and I exchanged little sheepish glances just as her man Charlie said, "What kinda trouble she gettin' into now?" over the system. With an affectionate chuckle that Lana answered with a toss of that ponytail that told him she knew he was just teasing.

So, he did the little "tsk" thing that a lot of tribes also seem to have in common and said, "I think we need an intertribal right about now, people! Grab somebody you don't know yet and drag 'em on out here! Bear Canyon, give 'em somethin' to dance to!"