The week unfurled slowly, too slowly for Sang-ho.
After Lee Chan-il's brief visit, the Skyfall Lounge returned to its usual hum. Cards snapping, dice tumbling, bills sliding across green felt. From the outside, nothing about the Lounge looked different. The gamblers were the same faces, the routine was stable, the atmosphere unchanged. But underneath, behind the doors that led to the back office, a quiet storm gathered.
Tae-min unfolded the blueprint of their plan once again on the table. It wasn't a real blueprint, just a mess of handwritten notes, arrows, circles, and scribbles that only he fully understood. Soo-jin stood behind him with arms crossed, reading along. Sang-ho leaned on the counter near the liquor shelf, smoking quietly, watching the two men like he was sizing up the tension in the room.
"This week," Tae-min began, fingers tapping at the pages, "we begin Phase One. We move slow. We're not ready for direct hits yet. What we need first is… uncertainty."
Sang-ho smirked. "Confusion before confrontation. I like that."
"It's more than that," Tae-min continued. "We need the Tigers to second-guess their territory. Not panic. Not rage. Just question things. Question each other."
Soo-jin raised an eyebrow. "How exactly do we make a pack of psychos start doubting each other?"
Tae-min slid another sheet forward. This one had two words written across it:
Phase One — "Fracture."
"It starts with the small things. Quiet things," he said. "Rumors. Whispers. Disruptions that don't point anywhere. Not enough to be threats, but enough to be noticed."
Sang-ho flicked ash into an empty cup. "Good. Psychological warfare. Make them fight shadows."
"Exactly."
The plan unfolded piece by piece, and each fragment revealed how dangerous and meticulous Tae-min had become.
1. Haneul — Soft Disturbances
Their newly recruited men were dispersed quietly across the district. None of them wore the Skyfall name. None even associated themselves publicly with the trio. They operated like regular locals, barbers, street vendors, taxi drivers, bartenders, and neighborhood ghosts who drifted between alleys.
They weren't told to provoke. They weren't told to threaten. They were told to observe. And more importantly, to distort.
At nighttime, Sang-ho walked the streets with two recruits trailing loosely behind, disguised as casual friends. He moved naturally, chatting, laughing, smoking, just another loud outsider blending into Haneul's chaos. But his eyes scanned every corner.
Small gangs. Lone troublemakers. Informants. Drunk gamblers. Places where Tigers collected money. Spots the Tigers had claimed but didn't patrol often.
Everywhere they went, they left seeds of doubt:
A drunken comment at a bar:
"Bro, you hear the Tigers are having problems with Namgye crews? Must be rough…"
A staged scuffle in a market:
"Didn't they say someone got robbed near Tiger turf? Thought they were supposed to be strong."
A whisper to a shopkeeper while pretending to buy cigarettes:
"Word is another gang's moving into Haneul. Everyone's nervous."
They never repeated the same rumor twice. Never used the same voice. Never lingered too long.
Sang-ho's charisma made it easy, people listened, people repeated, people embellished. In Haneul, where fear was currency and rumors spread like smoke, it didn't take much to make the air feel unsettled.
2. Namgye: Silent Footsteps
Namgye was different. More disciplined. Less chaotic. The Tigers had influence there, but it wasn't absolute.
This was where Soo-jin's side of the plan came in.
Soo-jin took six of their best recruits, men who blended in easily, and placed them in small clusters across the city. These weren't brawlers. These were watchers. Quiet, patient, sharp-eyed.
Their goal wasn't to cause rumors. Their goal was to watch the Tigers' side business operations in Namgye:
Warehouses. Courier drops. Night stalls where the Tigers collected money. Gambling rooms where they skimmed profits.
Every time the Tigers came or went, every car that arrived, every crate moved, every envelope exchanged, Soo-jin's watchers recorded it.
Not on paper, only in memory.
Then they reported back at night to Tae-min.
Slowly, a map was forming. Not on the table, not drawn with ink, but inside Tae-min's head.
Patterns. Weak spots. Gaps in patrols. Times when the Tigers were stretched thin. The places where their influence looked strong but actually cracked at the edges.
"That's where we start applying pressure later," Tae-min murmured as he pieced the information together.
But not yet.
3. Skyfall: The False Calm
Through all of this, the Lounge continued to operate normally.
Soo-jin's security team acted like nothing had changed. Sang-ho ran the fight club with flair, drawing crowds and earning respect. Tae-min kept the books tight, clean, and accurate, almost too accurate. No suspicious fluctuations that would catch the Tigers' attention.
Every night, the gamblers left happy or broke. Every night, the fighters wiped blood from their brows. Every night, Skyfall glowed like a star at the edge of Haneul.
But beneath the lights, the trio stayed alert.
Every sound.
Every door creak.
Every unfamiliar face walking in.
Every group that felt too quiet.
Every vehicle that stopped outside for too long.
They knew Phase One required patience. They had to look harmless. Submissive. Dutiful.
The trio wasn't building an army to fight the Tigers head-on.
They were building conditions.
And conditions were always stronger than brute force.
4. The First Signs
Three days into Phase One, the first small sign appeared.
A shopkeeper in Haneul mentioned to a recruit:
"You hear? The Tigers roughed up one of their own last night. Something about leaking information. They're tightening up."
The recruit didn't react, didn't pry. He simply nodded and walked off.
At the same time, a watcher in Namgye reported that Tiger collections were happening earlier than usual. A sign of distrust. Another watcher noted they had switched cars twice on a route they never used to worry about.
The Tigers weren't panicking yet.
But they felt something.
A presence.
Something unseen.
Something that didn't make noise but made the world feel colder.
Exactly as planned.
5. Sang-ho's Night Walk
On Thursday night, Sang-ho took a walk alone.
The moon hung low and orange, smothered by clouds. Neon lights flickered in shop windows, giving the street an uneasy glow. Trash rustled across the asphalt. In the distance, muffled shouting echoed from a bar.
He didn't walk with purpose. He walked to absorb Haneul, its chaos, its rhythm, its fear.
A group of locals eyed him from a corner. Not Tigers. Just street kids with too much bravado.
One whispered: "Heard the Tigers losing grip a bit… They're acting weird lately."
Another scoffed: "Nah, that gang's too crazy to lose anything."
Sang-ho smirked faintly.
Perfect.
He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and exhaled slowly. The smoke curled upward, swallowed by the gloom.
When he returned to the Lounge, Tae-min was still awake, poring over his notes, the dim lamplight turning his long hair into a dark curtain.
"You see something?" Tae-min asked without looking up.
"Yeah," Sang-ho replied, dropping into a seat. "Your plan is working."
Tae-min didn't celebrate. Didn't smile. He simply nodded and added:
"Good. That means we move to the next step soon."
6. A Single Wrong Spark
But Phase One wasn't without risks.
On Friday night, one of their recruits nearly got into a fight with two Tigers after making an offhand comment. Sang-ho had to personally intervene from a distance, steering the recruit away with a sharp whistle and a glare.
They couldn't afford mistakes yet.
Everything was still fragile.
Everything still needed to look like coincidence.
Still needed to smell like luck.
Still needed to feel like the Tigers were reacting to ghosts rather than people.
That was the heart of Phase One.
Invisible pressure.
No fingerprints.
No patterns.
Just enough noise to make the Tigers feel watched, but not hunted.
Not yet.
7. The Week Ends
By Sunday night, the trio gathered in the back office again.
Sang-ho stretched on the couch. Soo-jin stood polishing a knife absentmindedly. Tae-min updated the last notes from the week, scribbling details only he understood.
"So," Sang-ho said finally, "Phase One… complete?"
"Not fully," Tae-min replied. "But we've planted enough seeds. Now we observe how they grow."
Soo-jin asked, "When do we move to Phase Two?"
Tae-min closed the book.
"When the Tigers start acting differently."
Sang-ho smirked.
"And when they do… that's when things really begin."