Jihoon called them back with one message: Meeting — tonight. Safehouse.No explanation. No pleading. Just the words and a time. That was his way now: economy of voice, abundance of consequence.
They arrived in small waves — Daeho first, eyes still raw from sleep he didn't take; Soojin clutching a small sketchpad; Yeonhwa with a quiet steadiness; the accountant who had refused earlier, now cautious, watching from the doorway; others trickling in, all anonymous enough that none would be noticed on a curb camera. The safehouse smelled of tea and fear and something like determination.
Jihoon waited at the table, evidence already spread like a map — photos of spilled drinks, taunting notes, timestamps, grainy clips shot from the pocket camera he'd hidden in the cafeteria. Each item was labeled in his neat, indifferent handwriting. He didn't need to narrate. The room read the story on its own.
Soojin sat close to the papers, fingers tracing a smear. "This looks like bullying," she said, voice small. "It's ugly, and—" Her pencil tapped a rhythm on the table, nervous.
"We can post it," Daeho said before Jihoon could. He had the jolt of the journalist who'd wasted years yelling at walls. "We upload everything, anonymous, blow it wide. Make them look bad. Make them pay."
Jihoon's hands folded, calm. "Not now." The single word landed harder than any shout. Heads turned. Even the accountant held her breath.
"Why not?" Yeonhwa asked. "We have them. We can expose them—"
"We already exposed privilege," Jihoon said. "That flame spread without us. This is different." He tapped the map. "Those posts make noise. They give people reasons to whisper. But whispering won't bring back Jisoo. Whispering won't pull open the doors that let them delete cameras, bribe investigators, and stitch false reports."
He spread another sheet on the table: a crudely stapled list of names, badge numbers, duty rosters, a trail of small favors and convenient absences. This was not a bullying dossier. This was structure. This was where the system breathed.
"These are the men who stood in the gaps," Jihoon said softly. "The patrols that were 'off duty' the day the rooftop emptied. The detectives who closed files too fast. The officers who framed evidence and looked the other way. They aren't just cops. They are a network — a supply line for the governor's protection racket. They did the dirty work. They're the ones who wiped Jisoo from a paper trail."
The room tasted of something metallic. Daeho stared at a name, then another. "You know these names?"
Jihoon nodded. "I have pieces. Witnesses. A payment ledger I haven't published. A maintenance log that was altered. But pieces are useless if we scatter them like confetti. We need to break the machine. We need a plan that doesn't give them a single inch to hide."
"So we don't post the bullying?" Soojin asked, deflated.
"We do not feed instincts," Jihoon answered. "We capitalize on them. Post the bullying later, as corroboration. First — we strike at the head."
He set a new sheet down. Bold letters, stamped like an order: CODE GREEN — PHASE 2: DISSOLVE THE NETWORK.
The words made the air denser.
"It's a different fight," Jihoon said. "Bullying looks petty in a feed. Corruption looks catastrophic. We'll turn a smear campaign into evidence that holds up. We'll turn rumors into prosecutions and budgets into paper trails. We don't burn people; we expose, we freeze, we remove their authority. We make their badges worthless."
"How?" Daeho asked, voice low. "By leaking? By going to court? They own the courts half the time."
"We use what they cannot erase," Jihoon said. He folded his fingers together and leaned forward. "People. Records. Human errors. The network is built on convenience. Convenience leaves fingerprints. We force them to choose: admit or cover. When they cover, they lie. When they lie, they break under cross-examination. When they break, their protection evaporates."
Yeonhwa, who had seen hospitals' ledgers vanish, nodded slowly. "We need whistleblowers inside the precincts. People who are small enough to be ignored, but big enough to witness the transfers. A dispatcher who saw shift swaps. A maintenance clerk who remembers a camera was 'sent for repair.' They exist. Someone protects them with anonymity and a legal pathway, and they talk."
Jihoon's face didn't move. "Exactly. We set traps that demand a response. We orchestrate administrative audits using documents that cannot be immediately erased: paper receipts, notarized statements, bank timestamps. We route those records through channels that independent journalists and external watchdogs will accept—foreign archives, encrypted dropboxes, legal clinics. We force transparency where they thought they had control."
"So we wait," Soojin whispered, but it was not defeat. There was patience in it. A gritted tooth waiting for the right moment.
"We wait until we can cut the oxygen," Jihoon said. "Once we name the precincts and show a pattern of paid absences and redirected evidence, the governor cannot simply sweep it under. The press can't kill every copy. And the network's internal loyalty will crumble when their pensions and law licenses are at risk."
He paused, looking at each of them. "This is Code Green. Not angry, not viral. Surgical. Dismantle the police who facilitated the cover-up. Remove their authority. Expose the route by which they laundered reputations and buried bodies."
A long breath filled the room. Daeho rubbed his forehead. "And the bullying evidence? We shelve it?"
"We save it," Jihoon said. "It becomes the final nail. When the official record shows a cover-up, the bullying isn't an isolated incident. It is motive and method and cruelty. But motive without method is just noise. We'll give them both in the right order."
Soojin tucked a folded sheet into her sketchbook. "How do you ask people to come back for this? What do we do if they panic?"
Jihoon produced three small, laminated cards — burner contacts, a lawyer hotline, and two safe addresses. "We ask them to choose. No one is forced. Anyone can raise the white flag. But if they fight, we fight with law and light, not blinded rage. We'll protect those who choose to stand."
Yeonhwa's eyes were steady. "Then let's start finding dispatchers and clerks."
"Tomorrow," Jihoon said. "We split. Daeho—follow the ledger leads. Soojin—document the rooftop with art and hidden marks. Yeonhwa—hospital receipts, maintenance logs. The accountant will run payroll threads and flag suspicious vendor records she knows. I will contact the legal clinic and set up the external archive."
They moved with the silent efficiency of people who had let grief harden into strategy. There were no dramatic speeches, no violin music. Just small, precise decisions.
Before they left, Jihoon looked at the spread on the table once more — the bullying evidence, the names, the ledger. He covered the pile with a single sheet and closed it gently.
"Code Green begins at dawn," he said. "We will not burn them with fury. We will erase their power with facts. By the time they blink, their shields will be gone."
They left in ones and twos into the wet night, shadows folding into the city. Jihoon stayed by the window until the last light died. In the dark he whispered a name—soft, steady, like a vow.
"Jisoo."
The city held its breath.