Page 47 of Vibing Unity

Fair enough.

I loved the fact that he’d snuck into a K-pop dancing competition and just wanted to have fun. Seriously, a man after my own heart.

Neldor saw what was going on, and even if he didn’t understand, he didn’t like my attention on another man. He grabbed my phone and loaded Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” thinking I didn’t know it and he was awesome at it.

Oh, silly him. I’d learned it.

His eyes went wide when I did the dance right along with him, facing him even and didn’t miss a step or beat.

We did “Bad Romance” and “Uptown Funk” the next break, and by then I saw there were maybe less than a hundred people. We also had to move several times because workers weremopping the floors, and I was glad they were because we were all drenched with sweat after dancing so long.

Seriously, I was soaked and ready to dump water over my head.

But I loved every second of it. My only complaint was I wished they played more of the songs so we could do a bit of freestyle. I understood though because they wanted to see the moves people were able to learn for how clean and well-executed they were.

Towards the end of that next round there weren’t many people left, and I realized we might have a problem when a few people speaking Korean approached me… And Neldor was having the same issue.

The people didn’t seem to speak English well enough to understand me, so we were at an impasse. I shot Shael a worried look and she nodded, promising she had it.

A few moments later, I felt a portal open, so someone had been called in who spoke Korean or who could appear to speak it with magic to help us?

“I know you,” a man said as he joined the people wanting to talk to me.

I blinked at him. “I know you.” He was a different K-pop idol. The leader of one of the groups? Yeah, I was sure of it. Not BTS, but I totally recognized him but couldn’t think of his name.

He nodded. “Tamsin Vale, right?” He waited until I nodded. “You want to be a K-pop idol?”

Wait… “What?”

13

“Wait, how do you know her?” Neldor cut in as I tried to make my mouth work.

Kerym was suddenly there speaking to one of the people near us in Korean. His eyes went wide and he burst out laughing.

Oh, that couldn’t be good.

“She’s Tamsin Vale,” the idol said firmly, pointing to me. “She’s a huge social media influencer, and—we tried to do a collab with her clothing company, but you don’t do them.”

I shook my head. “We don’t do them—we’ll do them if the artist wants to. Not everyone in your industry has achoice. We got some interest to dress female idols with what the labels and managers wanted, but they wouldn’t let us talk to the artists or allow them input, so we shut it down. I’m not pushing this bullshit of men dressing females up like dolls.”

He seemed taken aback at how firmly I said it, and several men in the group trying to speak to us frowned. They might not know English to speak with us, but they probably knew enough to catch part of what I said and didn’t like it.

“What did you say now about me wanting to be an idol?” I asked him, waving off Neldor when he tried to interject.

“That’s the contest,” Kerym informed me, nodding when my mouth fell open. “The contest is—these are all record labels looking for the next big idol or group.” He tried to smother hislaugh as he focused on Neldor. “Didn’t you pay attention to what theprizewas or what this—”

“It was all in Korean,” Neldor snapped. “Google translated it to ‘live like an idol’ for the night or something. Dance like one.” He frowned. “Yeah, it was translated to party like one or something.”

Yeah, fair enough. We shared a look and I got it. We weren’t going to claim the prize anyways and would leave before we won.

“I’m sorry, but there’s been a misunderstanding,” I told the idol. “Can you tell them that we didn’t understand and will withdraw?”

“Why? You’re really good!” he argued. “They all want to sign you both. One as a duo. You dance really well together.”

“We already have enough going on and our attention needs to be elsewhere,” I said politely. “Thank you, but no.” I saw it pissed off one of the men who had been trying to talk to us, so clearly he understood enough. He reached to grab me, but I reacted faster and caught his wrist, squeezing it until he flinched. “I’m not one you can boss around because I’m the boss.”

“That’s not how it works,” he said in broken English.

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