Jeong Seongbin squeaked past the cutoff. Half of Choi Jeho’s octopus were in rough shape, but he earned a passing mark by sheer volume.
And I, who dredged up my old seafaring memories and put on a hellish shovel show...
“Eighteen, nineteen... twenty!”
“Honestly, Iwol, you ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ should switch careers.”
...got advised to change professions. The captain’s eyes sparkled. If I ever retire, I’ll consider it.
“What’s the penalty?”
While sweeping the octopus scattered across the deck into a tub, Choi Jeho asked.
Seeing him tidy up without being told—yeah, no way he plans to sell those. He’s definitely thinking of making chopped raw octopus out of the ones that won’t pass.
While I was seeing through Choi Jeho’s shady little plan, the producer pointed to a black midsize sedan parked in the lot.
“About forty minutes from here by car there’s a place called Muan. It’s got mudflats too.”
“Are we catching octopus again...?”
“C’mon, doing the same thing isn’t fun.”
The producer burst out laughing and waved a hand at Park Juu.
I don’t know what’s “the same” here. Even when we catch the same octopus, the ones Choi Jeho brings up somehow only have four legs.
“That mudflat has its own specialty.”
“No way...”
Jeong Seongbin flinched. Must’ve remembered one of the “101 creatures that live in the mudflats” he’d been chirping about in the van to Mokpo.
Bad premonitions never miss.
“Yup—cockles!”
“Wooow...!”
The cheers from Lee Cheonghyeon and Kang Giyeon were hollow. Both faces had turned the color of dirt.
And so the first octopus Spark ever caught, plus six sea-scented idols, headed back to land.
To do the penalty, we had to wait again for low tide.
Even accounting for the extra pickup shots we filmed after hitting land and the drive to Muan, we were looking at a four-hour gap.
The production kindly lent us one of the workers’ rest containers, so we could grab sleep until the tide turned.
“With a minor on the roster, there’s no way they can keep us shooting deep into the night.”
Maybe to protect our rest, there were no cameras inside the container. Thanks to that, the Spark brats actually got to melt off the all-night fatigue.
Park Juu was the first to conk out—head to the floor and gone—and the others huddled up and dozed in a cluster.
I found an empty spot, lay down, and pulled a flower-print quilt over me. It reminded me of that trip to the countryside to film self-content.
The nostalgia didn’t last.
The heated floor was too strong. I fused with it and drifted into a rare morning sleep I never get.
I woke up not long after. There was a bit of commotion outside the container.
When I opened the door, the camera crew were pulling gear back out that they’d already stowed.
“Iwol, why are you up already?”
A writer walking by spoke to me. Saying I woke because of the noise would’ve felt rude, so I didn’t explain.
“Are the kids heading out soon?”
“Not right this second—maybe in ten minutes? Staff will go wake them.”
I looked once at the crew getting ready, and once at the lumps behind me—couldn’t tell if they were sleeping or KO’d.
They might be two meters tall in the legs, but they’re still high-schoolers. They’d stayed up all night, driven from Seoul down to Jeonnam, then without a breather hopped on a boat and spent hours shoveling in the mudflats. That’s hard labor, no question.
And now we’re supposed to stick them on a flatboat again and send them back out—until each one digs up a hundred cockles.
There was no choice. If I just let that happen, I’d be a shameless adult who grew up without even basic moral education.
“Writer, can we do a ‘black knight’—a stand-in who takes the penalty for someone else?”
“Why? You want to go, Iwol?”
“Yeah. I want to let them sleep. They’re still growing.”
Maybe moved by our “friendship,” the writer agreed easily.
Three kids had to go do the penalty. I could only substitute for one.
Which meant...
“Choi Jeho, get up.”
“...Why?”
“Let’s go dig cockles.”
...this punk had to come too, or we’d only save one of the two youngest.
Choi Jeho sat up with a deep frown and scrubbed his face with both hands like he was washing it.
“For the kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha...”
He dropped his head and let out a long sigh.
Then he staggered up and grabbed the jacket he’d tossed on the floor.
Well, what can we do—we’re the adults on this team. Let’s call it doing our part for a more mature society.
While I was trading hushed plans with Choi Jeho, Park Juu woke up too.
He’s slated to go anyway, but if Jeho and I negotiated that we’d each dig 150 cockles, maybe he could rest.
“Juu, want to go dig cockles?”
“...You two are going?”
“Yeah. I think Giyeon and Cheonghyeon need more sleep. If they’re dead tired, Jeho and I can bring back 300 between us.”
“No, I’ll go. Let’s go together.”
“Does no one ask my opinion?”
And that’s how a new three-man party formed. One guy sounded unhappy, but we ignored it. We set off on our long journey to harvest cockles.
Nothing particularly special happened after that—unless you count how well Park Juu handled the flatboat, or the moment when, trying to shake off mud, Choi Jeho swung a basket full of cockles and sludge and splattered muck and shellfish everywhere.
Even so, the cockle mission wrapped smoothly. When we got back, the younger ones—once they heard what happened—gave us hugs, tearless but heartfelt. All in all, a productive shoot.
Some schedules start to feel familiar, like a variety show. Others don’t.
The table read did not. I’d barely watched dramas in my life, so for the past few days I’d gorged my eyes on famous series, behind-the-scenes videos, drama forums, and script books. Today was my first day stepping onto that kind of set.
I walked into the assigned conference room. Just like in the table-read videos, two long rows of tables faced each other.
A staffer was setting nameplates at each seat.
“You’re already here, Iwol?”
“Hello! Luckily the roads were clear.”
I checked the seating chart, then picked up the nameplates for one row to lay them out.
“Oh, you can leave those. I’ll get them in a second. Your seat is...”
“It’s fine. I can just follow the chart, right?”
“We should’ve had this all done before the actors arrived, gosh...”
“My idol habits aren’t all gone yet. I still try to be helpful anywhere I go.”
While we chatted and straightened the room, people began filtering in one by one.
The director and writer I’d met at the audition, then the actors. The big conference room filled up fast.
My job was to not stand out among these people.
No NGs, no drawing attention with wooden acting.
A first attempt at acting was never going to be easy.
“Who in their right mind evaluates performance reviews like this?!”
“If you’re unhappy, you can change it, Guan. Take first place.”
Crash-course lessons aside, everyone here had been acting for years—ten or more, for some. Even as a non-pro, I could hear the difference in their projection.
So what could I use to blend in among them?
Only one answer: naturalness.
Like when I worked at Hanpyeong Industries. Not as a person, but almost as an object.
Someone you barely notice in the organization, a third party behind a partition.
“Is the new team lead out of his mind? Isn’t that illegal under labor law?”
“Hasn’t our company been above the law for ages?”
While others were delivering lines, I had no business jumping in.
But then...
“Even so, come on. Doesn’t it look wrong to you too, Younghwan?”
A problem. Ha Seomyeong, who plays the lead, suddenly threw me an ad-lib.
All the eyes that had been following the script with me snapped my way.
I’d read that she’s famous for lots of ad-libbing, but I didn’t think she’d do it at the table read—much less at the greenest rookie at the table.
“For now, I think it’s safe to say we can kiss going home on time goodbye.”
I answered with a pinch of the despair I’d felt the day Chief Nam got promoted. Hearing the next line connect cleanly, I quietly exhaled.
And I prayed the rest of the time that I wouldn’t have too many scenes up against Ha Seomyeong.
Before the read, when the camera rolled, everyone did the formal first-impressions round: “I’m ___ playing ___, nice to meet you!” Then a bow, then group applause.
After the read, the vibe shifted to real greetings—handshakes, exchanging names.
Someone offered a hand before I could even put my script away. Ha Seomyeong.
“Iwol! I must’ve startled you earlier. I keep telling myself to break that habit, and I still don’t. I’m Ha Seomyeong!”
“Not at all, senior! Seeing you act in person blew me away. I’ll learn a lot!”
“Oh wow, I’ll take the flattery even if it’s just lip service!”
It’s not lip service. I really was stunned. My heart is the size of a bean, so please leave the ad-libs to the veterans.
I also had a chance to catch up with the writer. They said they’d overhauled a lot of the terms in the script after reading my reference pack. No wonder episode one had changed so much.
“From the look of it, I bet you would’ve done great in business administration too!”
They didn’t skimp on praise. Four years of lectures flashed past my eyes like a carousel.
I hope we start shooting the drama soon.
And I hope everything wraps smoothly—twelve episodes shot and done—and I get a nice chunk of proficiency as my reward.
