"Why is this?"
Unconsciously, Igeon stretched his hand out to the five coloured rings.
Zap!
When he touched the yellow ring.
An electric current ten times the strength of static electricity flowed into his hands.
"Ouch! Hot!"
Surprised, Igeon stepped back and somehow an unknown curiosity attracted him.
He couldn"t feel the pain, even though his fingertips had turned black from the electric current.
Rather, the unchanging situations only brought him depression.
The yellow ring violently sparked as the electric current circulated the ring.
"The others don"t seem to be like this."
Attracted by an ambiguous mysticism, Igeon stretched his hand out again.
He touched the red ring.
Wooong.
The ring vibrated strongly and pushed Igeon"s finger off.
"It"s rejecting me?"
It wasn"t as if it had a mouth to talk, but the moment he touched it he could feel its will, clear as water.
"What?"
If it was like there was no way he wouldn"t try to touch the other rings.
As he touched the black ring, Igeon was enveloped by a looming fear that heightened his alertness.. It was as if he just finished watching a horror movie.
Look back.
He quickly looked back, but there was nothing there.
Though the black ring didn"t reject his touch, he could feel something terrifying every time he tried to touch it.
"This is really strange."
The blue ring emitted a refreshingly clear feeling..
"Mm. This feels good."
As he continued to stroke the ring, it suddenly ricocheted his hand like a mother scolding its child.
"…You guys aren"t alive, are you?"
Unintentionally Igeon tried to talk to the rings and as expected, there was no reply.
As he put his hand on the last green ring, he could see an image of an unusual person.
But, Igeon couldn"t see through thick mist obscured his view.
"Who is that?"
Igeon tried to squinton its image, but the person soon disappeared.
The green ring was warm and he could feel its vitality.
However, it also had disregarded Igeon"s probing.
The other four rings all definitely had emotions.
The red was proud/arrogant, the blue was straightforward.
He couldn"t feel much from the yellow ring because of the electric current, but he could feel its animated nature.
It emanated a feeling of excitement to immediately go out and play around the world.
The black ring was much more haughty. "Do you think you can touch me without permission? Can you handle me?"
Igeon fiddled around with the rings and observed them for awhile.
After he spent the few hours like that he smiled and spoke.
"Good. Yellow you have an impatient personality? Right?"
As Igeon"s voice echoed into the air, the yellow ring sparked in response.
"Black, you"re cunning. You don"t like revealing your true colours"
That is why it liked to horrify to anyone who touches it.
Igeon continued to caress the yellow ring despite his hands burning black from it.
But the black ring stimulated emotions, so he avoided touching it.
"The blue seems to have a cheerful and cool personality"
The blue ring resisted Igeon the least. If it was a person, it would have a intrepid personality.
"Red, you don"t like it when someone touches you without permission right?"
Among the five rings, it was the only one that rejected his touch physically.
The power behind the red ring"s rejection was so vast that Igeon couldn"t touch it at all..
"Green you tend to look down on people"
As Igeon touched the rings, he thought of them them like people.
It wasn"t just his delusion that they seemed human-like.
"Fine. We have a lot of time. Let"s try to get along."
Igeon said to the rings with a lively smile.
Asking how long he slept for was a stupid question.
"his place doesn"t even have a clock or a window to look outside"
Except for the fan that goes whirs around to remind Igeon of , it was a completely empty room.
Though the room made drove him to boredom and madness, after seeing the five rings in the pure white s.p.a.ce Igeon was calm.
It was quite important for a person to have something to concentrate on.
As he was thinking, he could see the door open.
"Has it been ten days?"
It was Kim Domin.
Exhausted, he stood in front of Igeon and asked questions regarding his condition like usual.
"Can you feel any of your senses returning?"
"Not yet."
However, it was a conversation with short words barely enough to convey the meanings.
Domin wrinkled his brows.
"It has been 220 days"
Igeon should have exhibited a sign of movement by now.
As a dark disappointment leaked onto Domin"s face, Igeon wanted to tell him about the dream he had.
"But what if it"s not anything important?"
He couldn"t pour cold water on the sole hope he had to save his parents.
"I still have time."
He reasoned to himself.
If this was an indication of awakening as an ability-user as Seungwon talked about before, then there should be some kind of change.
However the reality was the same as usual.
"I"ll come again."
Domin left the room as he said his farewells.
"Today, I"ll move those five rings no matter what."
The next time Domin visits him, he will definitely give him good news.
Igeon naturally closed his eyes after Domin left.
Ever since he started visiting his dream world incessantly, he would sleep for more than 16 hours a day.
He was only awake for 8 hours.
But just lying down was suffocating.
"I would rather sleep all day."
His mind drifted away as he thought that, and as his eyes opened and closed, he was back to the snow-white world where he could see the five rings.
"Hehe"
He automatically started laughing. Ironically, this place which was more vivid than reality was; to Igeon it was a place where he belonged.
"Five rings…."
He wanted to discover the secrets behind the five rings.
Determined, Igeon"s hand stretched out towards the five rings again.
Proofreader Note: If you guys find errors, or have suggestions for proofreading, feel free to message me on the Kobatoland Discord channel . The sentences right now are really choppy and they"re put as individual paragraphs, which tick me off. I"m kind of iffy about combining them into paragraphs because I feel like I"m ignoring the author"s style. Thoughts?
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syk (TL)
Pyrenose (PR)