— 𝖎𝖓𝖍𝖚𝖒𝖊𝖉.

[velinjae]

                                        𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖊𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖈𝖆𝖒𝖊 𝖆𝖋𝖙𝖊𝖗.

                                         like this post for a plotting dm.

i'm ellin! (25+, she/them) i'm looking forward to getting to know everyone! it's been so long since i've been around on tumblr so please don't hesitate to let me know if i've done anything incorrectly ♡ i want to get along with everyone and make sure that this experience is mutually enjoyable, so please let me know if any subject matter makes you feel uncomfortable. here's some more info on kang injae! (trigger warning: murder):

no one remembers when he first arrived—he’s always just been there, moving through the edges of velgrove like a shadow you don’t notice until it’s already passed you by. he speaks little, walks light, and leaves his home only when necessary. never lingers. never draws attention. some forget his name, but everyone remembers the shape of him. the way the air folds in on itself when he enters a room.

his mother died when he was five. illness, they said. something sudden. quiet. ordinary enough to be buried without questions. after that, the house changed. or maybe just the man inside it. his father stopped speaking, stopped reaching, stopped seeing. not unkind, just emptied out—like something essential had been scraped from him. he fed injae. clothed him. kept the lights on and the cupboards stocked. but they lived beside one another, not with one another.

injae learned early how to survive in silence. how to go unnoticed. how to need nothing. he shrank into himself until the world stopped asking anything of him at all. the years blurred—quiet, colorless. a boy raised by the weight of a man who had nothing left to give.

and then, one day, something shifted. no argument. no raised voices. just a moment—a crack, a breath, a stillness. something inside him snapped, and he didn’t stop it.

when asked about the current whereabouts of his father, injae will say, “he left.” not a lie. not the truth. just enough.

in reality, his father is still occupying the residence. the body is still in the house. folded into the dark behind a closet door. injae hasn’t decided what to do with it yet. sometimes he swears he can feel it watching him. not his father exactly—but something of him, something left behind. a weight in the corners. a whisper at the base of the stairs.

with his father gone, he has to fend for himself now. he’s taken a job at the red fox tavern, moving between tables like a ghost, unnoticed but always there. he doesn’t speak unless spoken to. he doesn’t ask for anything. and the town, for the most part, returns the favor.

[velinjae]

                                                what remains 

the days have grown strange, and injae can no longer count them properly. they fall through him like sand through a shattered hourglass, impossible to hold. weeks... yes, weeks now, since he pressed his father into the earth, or perhaps into nothing at all. sometimes he wonders if the house itself has swallowed him, a sacrifice taken into its bones. he walks through its darkened corridors at night and swears the smell follows him, sweet and rancid, clinging to his lungs like damp smoke. other times it is gone, replaced only with the echo of his own footsteps, the hollow silence that swells until it is unbearable.

he knows no one has come. no door has rattled with police fists, no boots have thudded against the floorboards, no hand has reached through to peel away the mask he wears in daylight. he smiles, he nods, he pretends to be ordinary, to be unremarkable because that is his only safety now. to be overlooked. to be a ghost among the living. to be completely ordinary. and yet that, too, makes his blood run cold. the possibility that he might truly be getting away with it.

sometimes at night, when the insomnia takes hold, he sits in the dark and lets his mind unravel to its roots. it always takes him back to before. to the rare moments of warmth, when his father’s laughter rang unbroken and his mother’s hands smoothed every edge of their little world. he remembers the garden she used to tend, how the windows used to open wide to let in air and light. he was five when it ended. five when she slipped away so suddenly and cruelly. the house would never be the same after that. his father would never be the same.

the regret comes in fragments, sharp and jagged. he sees flashes of his father as he once was, happy and whole with a softness in his face that injae cannot reconcile with the man he buried. he remembers the rare days when he was carried on his father’s shoulders. when he felt that the world was not so heavy. those moments are fossils now, buried under years of silence. still, they cut him deep. because he knows that he killed both the man who once existed, along with the man who remained after everything rotted away. and yet guilt knows no such distinctions.

he wonders, often, if he has a future left to claim. when he looks ahead, he sees only a hallway stretching dark without end. he imagines a life where no one ever finds out, where he carries on unnoticed. but then what? what is he meant to be, with this truth burning like acid inside him? some nights he is certain that life as he knew it has already ended. that the moment it all happened, his own story stopped too. what walks around in his skin now is a shadow of what could have been.

he presses his face into his hands in the quiet hours and asks questions that have no answers. will life ever be the same again? did he doom himself the moment he acted? is the smell in his lungs real or imagined, the law coming for him or only the thundering of his own guilty heart?

still, in the mornings, he gets up. he opens the curtains. he walks out the door and pretends. and every step feels like balancing on the thin, sharp edge of a secret too vast to carry. yet he carries it anyway.

[everysongaday]

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ZITTEN (짙은) - No Rush

[velxgraves]

󠀠󠀮󠁽󠁝󠁝󠁝󠁝 @velinjae | location: the red fox tavern | tw: n/a

most employees at the red fox tavern were transient in some way. kids trying out their first jobs, the elderly looking for a night or so to pick up extra cash, a seasonal visitor or two poking around and passing through. or so his uncle had written. sol graves remembered the many people who had graced the tavern’s employ with a haze that had to do with a dizzying combination of time and fractured memory. who they were, why they were there, how long they stayed rarely connected to the mental facial inventory he’d been steadily regaining. direct memory, however, had little impact over what truly matter in the dire moments of a new hire. and what did matter… well, graves had that in spades.

it begins on injae’s fourth working day; daytime sun streaming in through the windows to cast playful shadows on the floors. he catches the boy — for he is a boy in the way that graves might never truly be wholly human; something intrinsic, mutable, a butterfly halfway out of the cocoon and learning (one way or another) — standing by the bar. there are glasses to be washed stacked atop the counter, kegs to be filled, a chair to repair, floors to be mopped; a million and one little things to be handled before the evening crowd rushes in demanding a pint and something warm to fill their empty bellies and weary souls. but none of that matters in the face of something set adrift, so instead he steps close and —

“injae?” sol graves waits for him to look in his general direction, to show attention where there had only been momentary absence. he wears a smile, eyes warmly neutral in their welcome back to the present. “why don’t we start in the kitchen?”

he waits for confirmation, compliance, something before heading to the stove he’d briefly left all by its lonesome. his fingertips brush along the handles of the pots and pans held aloft, plucking spices from the cabinets. his gaze settles on injae once more. “could you go down to the cellar and grab four onions and one bag of potatoes?” hopefully his newest employee wouldn’t get lost on life’s road along the way. (and if he did then graves would know where to start to find him, of course. there was no question that he’d find him should he lose his way; no employee of the red fox tavern would ever be lost on his watch.)

[velinjae]

it's supposed to be getting easier, he tells himself when he ties up his apron, when he straightens the collar of his wrinkled shirt. he just wants to be normal, to be liked. just another new employee learning the ropes, nothing more. but the thoughts crawl in like silverfish under a door: you’re too stiff. too careful. they can see it. they’ll know you’re trying too hard. what are you hiding, injae?

the tavern smells of wood polish and stale ale, sunlight pouring over the scuffed floorboards in gentle patterns. he watches the play of light and shadow until he’s startled back into himself by the sound of his name spoken with that soft warmth. you're watching him but not unkindly. his throat closes. had he been standing too long? had he looked strange again, eyes unfocused, hands still when they should have been working? he nods too fast, blurts out an obedient “yes,” as though to cover the gap of silence, as though to plaster over the strangeness already done.

be agreeable. don’t stutter. don’t let your hands shake when you touch anything. smile, but not too much. they’ll notice if it’s too much.

the kitchen feels like a sanctuary, yet foreign and strange to him. he imagines that during the busier times, it might almost enough to drown out the thought that someone is always watching, measuring, waiting for the moment his mask slips. when he half hears you ask for onions and potatoes, the concept of the cellar seems to stretch endlessly in his mind, the simple errand blooming into trial.

count the steps. don’t trip. don’t let them hear you breathe too loud. four onions, one bag of potatoes. not five. not three. four exactly. if you get it wrong, they’ll know. they’ll know what you are.

he nods again, careful, rehearsed. he wants to be good. he wants to belong here. but beneath it, the gnawing dread: every move he makes feels like proof that something is already wrong with him, something no amount of effort can keep hidden forever. "the potatoes don't have eyes on them, do they? those things are freaky. they aren't natural." he stalls. should he laugh at his own comment? he stays deadpan. "which way's the cellar?" a second or two of silence. "and don't just say down."

[velinjae]

                                                  quiet moments.

                               what do the quiet moments in their life look like?

in the quiet, there is no peace for injae. the silence of the house is thick, heavy, oppressive, like it presses against his ears and into his skull.

others might imagine “me-time” as something gentle. reading, resting, a reprieve from the day. for him, it is something else entirely. the quiet moments are when the dark corners of his home come alive, when the shadows in the hall stretch long and reach for him, when the stillness turns into a deafening roar.

he moves from room to room with the lights off, never daring to turn them on because light feels like exposure, like an invitation for the world to see inside. the only glow sometimes is from the window when the moon is cruel enough to look in. it’s in these hours, when the house hums with nothingness, that his thoughts swell too loud. he paces. he mutters to himself. he retraces the steps of that night, the struggle, the sound of breath cut short, the weight of what followed.

sometimes he stands in front of the closet door, unmoving. sometimes he touches the handle but doesn’t open it, as though the door itself is a pulse, beating with the truth he’s hidden away. he tells himself he’s safe. he tells himself nobody knows. but the longer he lingers in that silence, the more he starts to wonder if the walls are whispering. his “solitude” is not calm— it is confinement, a cage built of shadows, where the closet at the center of it all feels like it breathes.

[velinjae]

                                                         affinity.

            which element/weather is your muse most similar to and in what ways?

if injae could be summed up in a single element, it would be fog. that particular kind that rolls in from nowhere, swallowing landmarks, muting sound, and making the familiar feel strange. fog isn’t loud or dramatic like a storm, but it unsettles in quieter ways, slipping under your skin before you notice. it blurs edges, hides shapes, and forces you to question whether what you see is actually there. that’s injae: a man who doesn’t announce his danger outright, but lets it creep in, making you doubt yourself until you’re too deep to find the way back.

there’s a stillness to him, but it’s the kind that makes you think something’s waiting just out of sight. fog doesn’t chase you— it waits for you to wander in. injae operates the same way, letting others come close, only to find themselves disoriented by the time they realize the path has shifted. though, over time, i'd like to explore this working against injae.

weather-wise, he’s the oppressive calm before a downpour. not the rain itself, but that charged heaviness in the air when you just know something is coming. it’s anticipation mixed with dread, and you can’t tell if it’ll pass harmlessly or crack the sky open. injae thrives in that uncertainty, because he is that uncertainty.

[velinjae]

                               the wrong kind of familiar | closed | @velhaeil

the tavern smelled of spilled beer and old wood. it was something that injae was already starting to hate. his first week working here and he could already see the same faces settling into the same tables like they were stitched into the furniture. he hated that too. predictability. routine. the sort of thing that let people know when you weren’t somewhere you were supposed to be.

he moved between tables with a rag in one hand, the other resting against the tray on his hip, catching pieces of conversation without ever meaning to, without ever caring to. the locals laughed too easily, their voices carrying on and on, but his gaze kept snagging on the man who had taken the same seat every thursday since injae started. his name had been mentioned once or twice, but he hadn't been listening. despite his own indifference, it wasn’t hard to notice the stranger's patterns. it was harder to ignore them.

he slowed by the table, not out of courtesy but because his mind was already needling at the reason someone would want to be here so often. his voice was casual, but there was a sharpness under it, a testing edge. “you ever cook for yourself? or is this… your life?” the question left him quieter than the clinking glasses around them.

the silence stretched. injae’s fingers twitched against the rag, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to catch the smallest twitch in your expression. maybe you were just here for the food. maybe you were watching. maybe, in no time, you’d notice injae’s odd hours, or the way he never mentioned his family. no one had asked about his father yet, but all it took was one person looking too long. one slip. one question asked in the wrong tone.

somewhere behind the bar, someone laughed too loud. it felt sharp, pointed, like a knife between his ribs. he couldn’t tell if it was at him. he couldn’t tell if anything here was as simple as it looked.

[velinjae]

                                                                development

       what goals do you have for your muse? or would like to see for their growth?

exploring paranoia, grief, possibly acceptance—there are quite a few different themes that i'd love to see injae experience. which will velgrove allow?

for injae, i’d love to explore the slow, deeply uncomfortable process of human connection—especially after what he’s done. right now, he’s someone completely ruled by isolation, secrecy, and the unbearable weight of guilt. he doesn’t trust others, and even worse, doesn’t believe he deserves to be known. but i think there’s something deeply compelling about watching that kind of character be seen. maybe not forgiven, maybe not redeemed, but understood, even a little. i’d love for him to get close to someone—not in a romantic way necessarily (though it could be interesting), but just to see how it would break down his walls or even push him to more extremes.

alternatively, i want to explore the practical and emotional consequences of hiding his father’s body. at some point, he’ll have to move it. maybe out of necessity, maybe paranoia, or maybe something more surreal and unexplainable—like the body beginning to change. his fear of being found out will twist in new ways when the silence he buried starts to make noise again.

[velinjae]

                                                       horror

                in what ways are your muse cruel? or how are they when angry?

he deserved it. he deserved it. he deserved it. injae tells himself this again and again, until the words start to blur into nothing. it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t clean. it doesn’t matter that his father tried to run. or scream. he should’ve known better—should’ve known it was coming. after all these years, didn’t he know what silence does to a person?

there was a struggle. it lasted longer than injae thought it would. and afterwards, he stood alone in the hall, shaking. not from fear, not really, but from the strange clarity that came when it was done. he felt lighter. powerful. heard, for once. even if the only sound was the creak of the floorboards and the thud of his father’s limbs dragging across them.

they say silence is peaceful. but silence raised injae like a cage raises an animal. it taught him to be still, quiet, obedient—and resentful. over time, it twisted. fermented. and now he understands that the softest things can rot too. he isn't the boy he was. he hasn't been for a long time.

he had become cruel with the cold logic of someone who’s learned how to unfeel. he knows where to press to make someone flinch. he knows how long to wait before saying something that won’t be forgotten. he’s patient. too patient. he’s the kind of cruel that simmers. that smiles while shutting the door behind you.

but the world has a way of returning the cruelty. now, every time he walks past the closet, the air feels thinner. thicker. both. his breath catches sometimes for no reason at all. he sees things. faces. flickers in the corner of his eye that vanish when he turns. sometimes he speaks aloud just to prove to himself he’s real. sometimes he hears breathing while holding his own.

something was watching that night. he’s sure of it. not someone—no one in town knows. but something. something in the walls. something beneath the house. he felt it behind him, right before the knife slid where it shouldn’t have. it didn’t stop him. it watched. and now, he feels it waiting.

[velinjae]

                                                  day two — the meeting

the town hall is packed. too many eyes, too many voices, too many reasons to be noticed. injae stays near the back, close to the door, where the light doesn’t reach and no one turns around. he shouldn’t be here. he knows that. but staying home felt worse. staying home meant sitting across from the closet.

the mayor speaks with a kind of tired desperation. he mentions the girl—yang misol. the missing officers. the ones who haven’t come back. his voice trembles when he says he won’t risk sending more. that they need help. volunteers.

injae’s stomach coils.

the words echo through the room but don’t really land on him. not the way they should. he doesn’t know yang misol. he doesn’t care. he isn’t thinking about her. not really. not the way everyone else is. the only thing on his mind is whether someone, anyone, has noticed what’s missing from his life. a presence that used to be seen, barely spoken to, now vanished entirely. has anyone wondered where his father is? has anyone walked by the house and sensed the difference?

he wipes his palms on his pants. they’re damp. he’s not even warm, but he’s sweating. ears ringing. heartbeat crawling up his throat. they aren’t talking to him. no one’s looking his way. but that doesn’t matter. all it would take is one person. one curious question. one glance too long. what if they start checking houses? what if someone comes by to ask his father to volunteer?

he’s still in the closet.

but maybe this is a good thing. maybe this is the best thing that could’ve happened. misol disappears. the police go missing. something dangerous rises in the woods. and now everyone is watching there. not here. not at his house. not at him. maybe they’ll all be too afraid of the dark to wonder why injae’s father hasn’t come into town for weeks. maybe fear will buy him time. maybe fear will keep them out.

he shifts his weight, finally. no one looks. no one turns. the attention is still up front—on the mayor, on the missing, on the thing no one wants to name. injae lets out a breath, slow and shaking. the kind you don’t realize you’ve been holding until your chest aches. they don’t know.

they really don’t know.

his eyes flutter shut for a second. the swell of relief hits too hard, too fast, and something inside him starts to unravel. he presses the back of his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing. the edge of it slips out anyway, dry and cracked and too quiet to draw attention—but it’s real. he opens his eyes. the town is still focused on itself. on fear. on the conservatory. on misol.

he smiles. it’s too wide. wrong. but it doesn’t stop. his lips stay parted, twitching, teeth barely showing. it’s not joy—he’s not sure what it is. maybe it’s the sensation of being alive, still hidden, still safe. maybe it’s the absurdity of it all. the idea that a girl gone missing in the woods might have saved his life.

they’re all so scared of something out there. and maybe they should be. but injae’s fear lives in the small closet at the back of the house which used to belong to his father. it walks with him. sleeps in the walls. smells like rotting things.

his grin tightens, his eyes glass over, and he thinks—

maybe misol never left. maybe misol ended up like him. maybe misol is safe now too.

[micca-d]

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[velinjae]

                                                 activity check — 007

          beauty: how does your muse react to being loved? or how are they in love?

had he ever truly been loved? it was the kind of question that kept him up at night. then again, injae couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept properly. maybe a week ago. maybe a few months. or maybe it was before it happened—.

being loved by his mother had filled the first five years of injae’s life with quiet joy and meaning. it kept him grounded. his only concerns were when he’d next get to hold her hand or whether she’d prepare his favorite meal that evening. she had brought him into the world, and for a time, she was the world. her love gave him purpose. it got him out of bed each morning and made the world feel bright, worth noticing.

her death shattered all of that. at just five years old, injae turned to the only person left—his father—clinging to the older man’s leg in desperate hope of safety. but while someone was physically there, emotionally there was nothing. not love. not warmth. not even grief. his father gently pushed him away and returned to his day. no words of encouragement. no loving touch. just a quiet understanding, an unspoken agreement: that the man would keep the boy alive, and nothing more.

the absence had now rooted itself deep in injae’s bones. he moves through the world with caution, never expecting affection, never actively seeking it. connection feels foreign, something belonging to other people. not because he doesn’t want it—but because he no longer knows what to do with it. his mother had once made the world feel vibrant, almost soft. but now, everything feels muted. he doesn’t cry. he doesn’t speak unless prompted. the silence he grew up in followed him into adulthood like a second skin which was impossible to shed.

and yet, sometimes, in the quiet hours just before dawn, he wonders what it might feel like to be loved again—not in memory, not in theory, but now. for the man he’s become, not the boy who was left behind.

he never lingers on it for long. the thought fades. the silence returns. it always does.

[pinkhysteria]

Sweet Home 3.05 Lee Do Hyun │ Lee Eunhyuk

[lovestereo]

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