prophecies

baek jinri. 28.

[fatedandbound]

the cat: baek jinri.

intro. history. stats. episodes. onyang.

[fatedandbound]

oddity⠀ ⋯ ⠀ @saintsons

"Called you?" He leans in with a sort of conviction that never seemed to be able to reach him. "So you heard them? The person that's fucking with us?" Uiseong tilts his head so that his ear is closest to the speakerphone.

coincidence has a way of stacking on itself in onyang, like bricks laid without a blueprint. jinri isn't superstitious nor does she believe in signs, but even she had to admit that too many odd things happening in a row started to look deliberate. the weird letters showing up in unexpected places, the calls no one wanted to answer, and the way everyone somehow found themselves tangled in the same, strange patterns — none of it felt random anymore.

so, when jinri sees the letters, strange yet familiar, she can't help but pry.

"yeah, it called me," she responds. there's a slight tilt of her head, the faintest scrunch of her nose as if the memory leaves such a bitter taste. "i wouldn't say i heard the person." the words hang there for a moment as her eyes drift to her phone, and a quiet exhale slips past her lips. it was soft, almost like a sigh of defeat. her thumb moves with a deliberate precision, swiping through her call logs until she finds it. the voicemail.

it was marked with an unknown number and a time that feels too specific to be chance. she taps it once, screen flickering as the sound begins to play, and then places the device on the table between them, crossing her arms over her chest as she leans back in her seat.

the distorted voice bleeds into the quiet, a stuttering mesh of static and garbled syllables that just barely string together into some semblance of coherence. it's not loud, but it seems to fill every corner of the cafe, curling in like a low fog. for a moment, it feels as if the room itself is quieting down to make space for the sound.

words emerge, some recognizable, others swallowed by the mechanical hum. jinri keeps her expression calm and composed. she doesn't flinch, doesn't move, even as a faint restlessness simmers just beneath her skin. there's a quiet ache there, born from the countless interruptions and menial tasks that seem to stretch her time in onyang longer and longer.

this, she thinks, is just another one.

when the sound cuts out, the silence it leaves behind is more deafening than the message itself. she doesn't look at him immediately, eyes still fixed on the black screen. there's a tug in her mind, subtle but persistent, trying to find a common denominator between them. because whatever this is, it isn't just happening to her.

"i don't know what they're trying to do, but this doesn't seem like a coincidence," jinri lifts her gaze to meet his for a moment before she reaches to grab her phone and slip it back into her pocket once more. "so, no more secrets. tell me about the letters."

[fatedandbound]

retrograde ⠀ ⋯ ⠀ @lostw0n

he grabs his drink from her hand, no longer missing a beat, "what, did winning awards get boring? or was pouring my coffee your real dream job?" he grins as he stirs the straw before taking a quick sip. it tastes bitter as ever, but not half as sharp as seeing jinri again. here, in onyang of all places. that woke him up more than the caffeine ever could.

familiarity is such an odd thing.

for one, onyang has become familiar to her again, but not in the way that brings comfort or nostalgia. the quiet streets, the lingering stillness, the way the air seems to hold its breath, like the town itself is biding its time for something it can't quite name. it's a familiarity that feels heavy, like a shadow hovering, no matter how hard you look for light, and it reminds her of all the reasons she wants to leave in the first place.

and then another kind of familiarity surfaces — the one she didn't expect.

the roughness in that voice, low and tired, pulls her back faster than she wants to admit. she recognizes it before she even looks up. her hand stills for half a second on the register before she finally forces herself to move, steadying her fingers as she taps in the order. iced americano. of course, it's an iced americano. it always was.

it's absurd how quickly won's voice brings back the memories — the lazy weekends, the hush of 3am in their shared apartment, the smell of burnt toast and instant coffee that permeates the walls of their home — it brings back just enough to pull a familiar ache in her chest, something she should have buried long ago.

a small smile tugs at her lips, bordering on a smirk. it wasn't warm, nor welcoming, and it wasn't at all polite even if she tried. "now, you make it sound like i came back just to serve you." she responds, her voice even, though a small chuckle escapes her, amused by it all. "onyang has a way of pulling people back in, don't you think? guess you didn't outrun it either." her words come across harsher than intended, rubbing salt in the wound more than she expected, but not on won's but rather, herself. because if there was one thing, she had always believed that at least one of them would've found their way out.

her eyes linger on him a moment longer before she reaches over to hand him a small stack of napkins. "didn't think i'd see you here out of all places... how long have you been in town for?"

[sickeningly-cruel]

[xbethelight]

The Frog 아무도 없는 숲속에서 (2024)

[fatedandbound]

down the line⠀ ⋯⠀ @4ntemortem

"hi." jiyeon hates how reedy her voice. how have you been? everything ok? why did you come back? "can i get a cup of coffee?"

jinri freezes at the sound of that voice. reedy, hesitant, but still unmistakably jiyeon. the pot of coffee in her hand is hot, but her fingers don't register until it nearly sloshes over the rim. she steadies herself, drawing in a small breath before she turns. it's been years but jiyeon looks almost exactly the same, yet nothing like the girl jinri used to know. her hair's longer, frame thinner, but it's in her eyes — still restless, still bracing herself over something that might never come. jinri's lips twitch, something caught between a polite smile and a bitter recognition. "coffee," she echoes softly, tucking her hair behind her ear as she sets the pot down. "sure." she grabs a clean mug, the ceramic clinking lightly against the counter as she pours. the air in the cafe feels thicker now. it clings to her skin in a way that has nothing to do with the summer heat. she slides the coffee against the counter with a practiced kind of ease, but her eyes linger on jiyeon's face a moment too long. long enough to just hold her gaze.

fuck, she has to speak to her now.

"didn't expect to see you here," jinri begins. her voice is calm and polished, the kind that is almost foreign in a place like onyang. "guess i shouldn't really be surprised. you were... always loyal to this place." the edge is there, but she doesn't mean for it to be. it was just an observation, one she's always had since they were young.

she doesn't ask why jiyeon is there, why she's sitting in this empty cafe of all places. maybe jinri doesn't want to know. or maybe, she's not ready for jiyeon to ask the same thing in return.

"so, milk? sugar?"

[poetryforall]

[fatedandbound]

reconnect⠀ ⋯⠀ @ech0h

he takes another long drink, glances up at jinri over the rim of his glass. “can’t be all bad, can it?” he means it as a joke, it just doesn’t manage to sound like one.

two years back in onyang, and the air still feels thick with everything she tried to outrun. the shame of her return still clings like smoke in her clothes. people talked. of course, they did. the town has a way of peeling people open, no matter how hard they hide. the prodigal daughter, swallowed up by seoul and spat back out like bone. jinri never flinched, though, never winced, never once asked for help or forgiveness. she just unpacked her things, straightened her spine, and went back to walking through town like she never left in the first place, daring its people to call her a failure to her face. no one did. but they didn't have to. she feels it at every glance, in every awkward silence, the soft whispering its locals otherwise thought wasn't obvious. oh, but it was. and she was aware of it all.

her expression remains even, almost amused. "up with me? not much," she replies with a little shrug. "you know how it is around here, time doesn't really move too fast," she's almost too quick to shut him down. that's the most honest she'll ever get. at least, until she gets a few more drinks in her. "can't say it's the worst, though,"

in honesty, seoul moved too fast, despite how hard she tried to keep up. all the drive and ambition in the world couldn't stop baek jinri from turning into a paper version of herself. crisp edges, easy to tear. it wasn't an easy truth to accept, but it was the truth nonetheless. she thought leaving meant freedom. instead, it meant learning how to come apart in solitude. how to fail without anyone hearing the crash but her.

then there was the guilt that follows. a low, aching feeling that rises from the pit of her stomach, settling beneath her ribs every time she looks at ilwoo. she left without warning, without explanation, like he was just another chapter closed. she tells herself she had no choice, that if she stayed in town, she'd have rotted along with it.

or maybe not. maybe life in onyang could've worked out. after all, he's still here. but there's no use in dwelling on it. all she could do was move forward now, whether the town let her or not.

"seoul's pretty damn loud. but i think you'd like it for sure," she glances up from her glass, finally meeting his gaze. a pause stretches between them, the kind that hums with all the words she won't say. the bar feels smaller suddenly, like the walls are listening. she leans back just slightly, folding her arms over her chest. composure — her favourite armor. "you know, you haven't changed much," she utters out of the blue, lips curling into a small smile, the kind that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "you still drink like it's going to answer something," it's teasing, familiar, but her eyes betray something else. ilwoo was the one person she thought wouldn't still be there. part of her was hoping that he'd moved on with his life, just so she wouldn't have to ask herself why she hadn't, even with how hard she clawed her way through it all.

as always, jinri holds onto her silence like a blade — close enough to hurt, never enough to bleed.

[fatedandbound]

"don't worry, you'll never uproot us from this place again." you turn off the show, frazzled. then your phone buzzes with a notification, a missed voicemail.

the words wash over her, leaving goosebumps in their wake. the figure was a spitting image of jinri, but no, not quite. they looked warped, like a bad reflection in a cracked mirror. the eyes gleam with something cold, malicious, and that smile — it's hers, yet twisted. it feels like a hallucination, like a bad trip spiraling past the point of no return. akin to a nightmare, but there was no waking up from it. she leans back against her chair, grimacing as she tries to draw as much distance from the screen as possible before she turns it away completely. "fucking hell," she mutters, followed by an annoyed huff.

"don't worry, you'll never uproot us from this place again."

she treats the ordeal like nothing more than an odd series of events, but even then, the words still shake her. even when she didn’t know what they meant completely. it was something more felt than heard — like it's finding its way through the hollows of her chest, trying to rattle each and every rib rather than her ears. she rolls her shoulders, trying to shake off the chill that settled in her bones.

then a buzz, and she almost jumps at the sound of it. the screen read one missed voicemail.

her instincts tell her she shouldn't. god, she shouldn't even consider it. any sane person wouldn't after all of that. she has half a mind to delete it, to swipe it away and let it rot with the rest of the untouched voicemails in her inbox. but... she doesn’t. instead, she brings the device to her ear, bracing herself as if it'll bite. curiosity kills the cat, sure, but satisfaction brings it back. and frankly, even with all the weirdness going around, jinri wasn't satisfied just yet.

satisfaction might just be worse.

jinri decides to listen to the voicemail.

[metamorphesque]

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

[fatedandbound]

YOU’RE FEELING STIR CRAZY — @theantlergod but it’s raining outside, so you don’t even want to take laps around the town. you're stuck in your cramped home listening to the rain clatter against the roof. all you want to do is watch a show on netflix, but your wifi connection keeps cutting in and out, leaving the actors in an eternal buffering state. the rain always makes the internet even worse than it already is. you sigh, and try to decide what to occupy your time with when your phone rings. you’re a bit surprised, usually if your wifi is out, then your phone is spotty too. you fish it out of your pocket and answer it. on the other end of the line is a robotic, scripted voice.  “hello baek jinri, you have a voicemail from” your phone cuts out, though that’s not surprising, but it picks up connection again to finish the message “press 1 for I ACCEPT, press 2 for MORE OPTIONS” DO YOU… - press 1 - press 2

she doesn't press anything right away. the house is quiet, save for the sound of the rain clawing its way through the roof like it's trying to get in. it was steady and loud, but just slow enough to get under her skin. the light from her phone casts a cold glow on her face, catching the edge of her cheekbone, the confusion in her face evident with how her brows knit together ever so slightly.

the voice shouldn't bother her. it's just another robocall. some badly timed, poorly programmed script. but the way it said her name — not mispronounced, not hesitant, not automated — makes something in her chest go still.

"hello baek jinri," it said. not miss baek, not a poor, glitchy approximation. it said her name like it knew her. like it had always known her.

her thumb hovers over the screen.

1) accept. 2) more options.

the longer she stares, the less it feels like a prompt and more like a test.

beside her, the laptop screen remains frozen on someone mid-laugh, then jolting forward with a stutter. the actress' smile stretches too wide in the frame, unnaturally bright, uncanny even. her voice warps, a deep laugh at first, stretching into a single word. it sounded mechanical and garbled, looping the same word over and over.

"accept." "accept!" "ac...cept..."

it was low and wrong. not a glitch, exactly, just... off. it didn't sound like the actress anymore. instead, it sounded like someone pretending to glitch.

jinri swallows hard.

it's just the storm, she tells herself. the signal always gets like this with this much rain, or any shift in weather, for that matter. she was probably jittery from being holed up at home all day.

but even then, there's an odd thought — small, sharp — knocking stubbornly at the back of her mind. an unease that she's tabled far too many times before, but it's become familiar since returning to onyang. the longer she stays, the more things start to blur. time stretches, and snaps, and folds in on itself. some days don't feel linear anymore. sometimes, she swears the clocks don't move and time doesn't flow at all.

maybe she's dreaming.

or maybe this is the reality of her life now. slow. uneventful. stretched thin across days that bleed into each other. not quite living, just watching. she floats from one place to another, watching time pass by without really feeling it. maybe it's not a nightmare at all. maybe this is just what it means to exist here.

she's not sure when that started.

jinri's gaze lingers too long on the frozen screen. it doesn't move, but it feels like it's waiting. like the actress would move if she looked away. the idea alone sends a chill down her spine, shaking her head to herself as she scowls, then she pushes the laptop aside.

"whatever," she mumbles under her breath. her thumb tightens and then she presses 1.

[poemwav]

– Jamie Oliveira | from "Erosion"

[fatedandbound]

hi friends, i'm miffy (she/her) and i'm very excited to introduce baek jinri to all of you. please forgive me for being on the slower end as it's been a while since i last wrote on tumblr. for now, i have her history & a little basics page up to get started. while i am still getting settled in, i'd love to get the ball rolling and get some plotting done as well. i'm available through tumblr dms (though i do operate in mst time) but feel free to ask for my discord if that is your preference. thank you again for the warm welcome.

a little tl;dr on the cat, baek jinri.

jinri is an onyang native through and through. she was mostly raised by her grandmother, since her mother passed away when she was ten, followed by her father seven years later.

made a reputation for herself as the odd one in town. having no parents and such a superstitious grandmother kinda just fuelled the disconnect she already had towards the people in town and her peers.

she was rebellious, often getting into things she had no business being in. mostly a troublemaker through her youth then her adolescence, that's why it came as a surprise when she made it out of town in the first place.

her family isn't as prominent as the others, but her ancestors were known for their devotion to the antler god, of course, the deity has been forgotten now, especially with her grandmother gone. jinri was supposed to bear that responsibility, but yk, the city calls and she can't let it go to voicemail. 🤩

she's mostly taken the personality of a city native now; she's calm, detached, indifferent about most things (unless it's something she cares too much about lol) and tries to mind her business but really, in a town where everyone knows everyone, that's a hard feat. she's too curious for her own good, whether it be something otherworldly or just... good ol' hot goss.

being back 'home' makes her comfortable enough to revert back to her past self. it certainly comes out more often towards people she trusts and she cares about. she doesn't like what that entails though. she thinks the more comfortable she gets, the less likely she is to leave.

other tidbits

sensitive to any kind of pity. even as a kid, she's hated it.

has a bit of a volatile temper. not really a short fuse per se, but it's definitely there. evident in her bright and colourful language. 🤞

she works out of onyang cafe as a server because 1) she hears stories from all walks of life, whether from fellow natives or tourists(??), 2) best wifi. she still tries to keep in touch with her life in seoul, even though its basically forgotten her.

likes her solitude, but likes trusted company even better. the best way to her heart is through her stomach, namely a piping hot bowl of ramen.

wanted connections

considering the small town vibe onyang has going on, i would love tons of childhood connections. friendships that didn't pan out, rivalries that make their comebacks, even a first love plot.

aside from that, i'm also open to having more current, newly found connections as well as close friendships and antagonistic pairings. (pspsps would love close friends to chip away at tough ol' jinri....)

we could also plot something out from before she left, for when she came back, or for other failed seoulites, outside of town altogether.

also a big sucker for angst and sad plots. exploring grief from losing loved ones and abandonment issues, facing burn out and the anxiety that comes with it from being a formerly gifted individual to name a few. it could even be something as simple as rekindling friendships, past romances, and the like.

if none of those doesn't fit, i'm willing to brainstorm about other things, especially if you have any specific thing that you think jinri would fit.

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read. i hope i explained as best as i could, feel free to ask for any clarifications as well. i'm very much open to feedback and maybe even a bit of alteration depending on plot/dynamics.