Chapter 270: Nagoya’s Mudflats (2)
A salty scent brushed past the tip of my nose.
This place, where gentle waves could be heard in the distance, was one of Nagoya’s mudflats.
First time coming to mudflats overseas too.
When I first heard about it, I’d been pretty bewildered, but now that we were actually here filming, I curiously looked around instead.
The quietness of the surprisingly deserted mudflats wasn’t bad at all.
Right as I adjusted my posture while twitching in the boots that kept sinking downward—
The camera’s red light turned on.
At the same time, a loud voice rang in my ears.
“What’s this? So you were over here?”
A man hurried toward us with his eyes wide open.
Yuito, the famous Japanese comedian and MC of <Action! Variety Real Trap>, continued speaking in an exaggerated tone.
“Well, well, look who this is. K-pop idols! Your name was… your name! I’ve definitely heard it somewhere before. First, please give us a simple introduction!”
Standing in front of cameras had become second nature by now.
I thought something as simple as a self-introduction would be easy, but saying it in Japanese still made me a little nervous.
Under Kang Siwoo’s lead, a loud greeting rang out.
“Shine bright! Hello, we’re Stardust!”
“Ooh, Stardust…! Do you know where this place is today?”
“Nagoya.”
“You can see the mudflats behind you.”
We were trying our best, but our Japanese skills were still lacking.
When Jin Sehyun added something in awkward Japanese, laughter burst out among the staff.
Still, thankfully the atmosphere wasn’t as stiff as expected.
Yuito smiled warmly and spoke.
“Kang Siwoo-san, do you know what Nagoya Bay’s specialty is?”
“Mmm….”
Kang Siwoo’s eyes rolled around.
Yuito answered instead.
“Fresh razor clams!”
“Razor clams?”
I’d never really eaten razor clams before.
Maybe he noticed my widened eyes, because Yuito turned toward me.
“Seohan-san, have you ever tried Nagoya’s razor clams?”
“…….”
“Oh dear. That’s the face of someone who’s never eaten razor clams in his life.”
“Seohan eats clam noodle soup without the clams….”
“You don’t eat shellfish?”
“That’s not it.”
Seo Haim’s surprise exposé continued.
I hurriedly waved my hands and shook my head.
Haim looked like he wanted to add something in Japanese too, but thankfully the language barrier restrained him somewhat.
Thank goodness.
Yuito smiled kindly while rolling up his sleeves.
“It’s okay even if you’ve never tried Nagoya’s razor clams before. Because today, we’ll catch them ourselves and eat them.”
“…!”
“So I finally get to encounter Nagoya’s razor clams?”
“Yes!”
Though honestly, they’d probably just taste like ordinary clams anyway.
The members, whose reactions had grown extra exaggerated because of the cameras, grinned brightly.
Yuito continued enthusiastically.
“In that spirit, today’s mission! If you catch thirty razor clams within one hour, the production staff will prepare an amazing Nagoya seafood feast for you!”
Truthfully, the razor clams were only the buildup for the mission.
The real main menu of today’s trip was the luxurious seafood feast featuring octopus, abalone, and assorted sashimi.
Just hearing the menu made my mouth water already.
“Have you ever caught razor clams before?”
“Yes.”
Thankfully, catching razor clams was fairly familiar to us too.
Jin Sehyun made a gesture of sprinkling salt over mudflats and asked,
“Isn’t it that thing? Where the clams pop out if you sprinkle salt?”
“I think I tried it when I was little too.”
Do we dig with hoes here too?
“Wow! This sounds fun!”
While the eldest line carefully managed their expressions in front of the camera, Seo Haim was genuinely thrilled.
“I wanted to catch clams!”
Since we’d come all the way to mudflats, we’d expected this sort of mission anyway.
The only concerning thing was…
There was absolutely no guarantee that razor clams would pop out so easily.
Kang Siwoo began analyzing with a serious expression.
“Thirty in an hour is actually a lot.”
“That’s only like four or five per person, but….”
“You probably need artisan-level dedication just to catch one.”
“Yeah. They might not come out as easily as we think.”
“If someone dumped salt on me, I’d run away too….”
Maybe Seo Ian’s unexpected empathy had activated, because his body trembled slightly.
Meanwhile, the staff finished setting up the mission.
Swish.
Seo Ian, who had been looking around the mudflats, tilted his head.
“Hm?”
We’d assumed it would just be a normal content segment about entering the mudflats and catching razor clams, but yellow boundary lines had been marked off with ropes.
And at the end of them, mysterious white flags fluttered in the wind.
Yuito laughed loudly and shouted,
“If we just handed out salt easily, where would the fun be?”
“Wait… is this a team competition?”
“It’s an individual match!”
Peacefully catching razor clams together would’ve been nice, but that wasn’t exactly good variety show material.
“Of course, it’s true that all of you together need to catch thirty razor clams! But the two members who catch the fewest won’t get the chance to enjoy Nagoya’s luxurious seafood feast.”
Even if the group as a whole reached the required number of razor clams, the bottom two would still fail.
And the critical factor separating everyone—
Was the salt.
“Only the first four people to run to those flags over there will receive salt!”
“T-Then the rest have to catch them without salt?”
Correct.
“Yes. After that, you’ll have to survive on your own. You can borrow a little from members, or happily dig until razor clams appear…! Either way, as long as you catch razor clams within the time limit, that’s all that matters!”
“Can they even come out without salt?”
“I… I don’t know.”
At Yuito’s words, the eyes of several fiercely competitive members lit up.
No matter what, we absolutely had to get salt.
Digging up razor clams without salt?
At that point, begging nearby pedestrians for razor clams would probably work faster.
There was no need to take the hard road when the proper method existed.
Silently, I stared at the flag far away.
Cha Seongbin shrugged and said,
“I’m seriously not going easy on anyone.”
“Sorry, but hyung isn’t that scary.”
“The scary one’s probably… leader hyung over there.”
“Sehyun-ah, I’m definitely beating you.”
The psychological warfare didn’t last long.
The moment Yuito blew the whistle—
All seven members charged forward at once.
And then—
Flail flail.
“Help! A person is trapped over here!”
“Uooogh…!”
You call this running?
Isn’t this basically swimming through mudflats?
---
“Haa… ha.”
Ragged breaths climbed all the way to my throat.
Could my next sudden death seriously be from suffocation?
Or maybe collapsing from total exhaustion.
While imagining various possibilities in my head, I gripped the small shovel with trembling hands.
“Ah, I’m dying.”
You called this a healing trip!
You said we’d be enjoying Nagoya’s beautiful mudflats and coastline!
Right now, I couldn’t see any of that.
Romance, scenery, whatever—
This wasn’t the time for that.
If I really had to find some romance, maybe it was the tiny bubbles burbling up each time salt was sprinkled onto the mud.
That tiny sign of hope was the only romance left.
Since no signal from a razor clam had appeared yet, I remained crouched there waiting for ages.
Still, our side’s situation was actually pretty good.
“Do Seohan was insanely fast….”
“You practically rolled across the mudflats.”
I took one step and immediately made my decision.
The way my feet sank deep into the mud made it obvious that trying to run would only get me completely trapped.
The sinking members beside me had proven that well enough.
So I simply…
Swam.
“How did you even do that?”
“Seohan’s a hamster, so he’s light.”
“What are you talking about? He’s over 180 centimeters tall.”
“Water striders have long legs too, but they’re still good at gliding on water.”
“…Is Do Seohan a water strider?”
Anyway, thanks to that, I now held a precious bag of salt in my hand.
Meanwhile, hyenas with gleaming eyes surrounded me from every direction, targeting my salt.
“They said a little extortion is allowed, right?”
“Should we go rob the water strider of his salt~?”
“I’m terrified.”
Jin Sehyun’s blatant stare had been fixed on me this entire time.
I vigorously shook my head and stepped backward.
“Ah, why are you only asking me?”
“We can’t exactly steal from Siwoo hyung.”
Jin Sehyun had come in fifth place and failed to get salt.
He’d been whining for ages now that even after digging endlessly, all he’d found were mud worms instead of razor clams.
Clicking my tongue, I poured out a little salt from my bag.
“I’ll only give you a little, so from now on live kindly.”
“Knew our Seohan was the best!”
Beside him was another person who’d been wandering around begging for salt.
Cha Seongbin poked Ha Junseo’s side with a hollow expression.
“My salt…. Give me some salt….”
“Hey, we seriously need to give him some.”
Ha Junseo recoiled in shock as he turned his head.
“His face looks sodium deficient.”
“Ahahahah! Ahahah!”
“The mudflats were really hard on him~.”
“Sorry, Haim-ah, but we’re still suffering in real time.”
“That’s true.”
I didn’t know catching razor clams would be this difficult.
Seo Haim clicked his tongue briefly before speaking to me.
“Haa…. Seohan-ah, I guess you can’t keep eating clam noodle soup without clams anymore, right? We worked this hard to catch them! Don’t you feel guilty now?”
“Those are farmed.”
“You really have no romance in you.”
While Seo Haim searched for romance, Seo Ian suddenly let out a short scream.
“Oh! Something came up over here!”
“A razor clam? You found one?”
“…Ack!”
It was a mud worm.
What a shame.
Clicking my tongue again, I sprinkled salt into another small hole when—
“…Huh?”
Some suspicious bubbles started rising.
“This one’s real!”
At my words, every member who’d been silently digging immediately turned their heads.
A tiny snout poked out from the mudflat.
At last, we had finally encountered a razor clam.
“I caught a razor clam!”
“No way, let me see.”
Flail flail.
The moment I shouted, people from all directions swam toward me through the mud.
I grabbed the small shovel and diligently dug around where the razor clam had appeared.
Soon enough, something long landed in my hand.
Not a mud worm—
A real razor clam.
“Whoa, jackpot.”
“It already came out?”
“What does it look like in real life?”
“Me too! Me too!”
Everything was fine, but—
“…You guys kind of look like zombies.”
Stop flailing toward me like that!
It seriously looked like an apocalypse scene.