The cyber-camper moved steadily through the roads of Cebu, its engine humming softly beneath the evening air.
Outside, the merged city glowed with layers of old and new light—street vendors beneath holographic signs, jeepneys sharing lanes with hovering transit rails, familiar roads twisted together with architecture that hadn’t existed on Earth a year ago.
Inside the truck, things were quieter.
Hydro kept one hand on the wheel while the other rested lazily near the console.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then Chomp finally did.
“…You got quieter again after the announcement.”
Hydro blinked slightly.
“Hm?”
“The celebrity names.”
A pause.
“…Especially those sisters.”
Hydro immediately knew who he meant.
He exhaled through his nose.
“…Yeah.”
The windshield reflected the city lights across his glasses.
Chomp’s voice stayed calm.
“What actually happened between all of you?”
Hydro didn’t answer immediately.
Not because he didn’t know.
Because there was too much to compress into one sentence.
The truck continued forward quietly.
Then Hydro scratched the side of his head awkwardly.
“…Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“…It was messy.”
A pause.
“Like REALLY messy.”
The traffic light ahead turned red. Hydro slowed the vehicle carefully.
“I used to hang around those people a lot before everything got complicated.”
Another pause.
“Group chats. Cosplay stuff. Random conversations every day. Dumb jokes. Late-night arguments about anime power scaling. The usual.”
Chomp listened quietly.
Hydro leaned back slightly in the seat.
“But eventually everything became loud all the time.”
The word loud lingered longer than expected.
“People arguing. Screenshots getting sent around. Somebody taking messages out of context and dropping them into another GC like they were trying to start a war.”
His expression tightened slightly.
“I genuinely hated that behavior.”
The traffic light reflected red across the dashboard.
Hydro stared ahead.
“Like… if somebody has a problem with me, just tell me directly. Don’t turn social circles into courtroom drama.”
Chomp processed that silently.
Hydro laughed weakly once.
“And the dumbest part is that I wasn’t even innocent either.”
YOU ARE READING
Black Nail
AventuraIn the year 2035, following the total collapse and rewriting of the original timeline, Hydro Undergrove has carved out a fragile, ordinary existence. He splits his time between a photography studio and cosplay event staffing, desperately hiding a pa...
