Chapter Text
“Say cheese!” A bright flash. The light blurred his vision so that the person in front of him was indistinguishable. Muffled cheers came from the person behind the camera. Everything felt slow to him. Happiness slowly swelled in his chest and he could feel a smile pulling at his lips. Why?
Arms wrapping around his small torso swamped his senses. Giggles came out from his mouth. He wasn’t making those sounds though. His vision blacked out as his eyes squinted from smiling too big. A muffled “you did it!” came from the person holding him. Was it the same person behind the camera? Who are these people? His vision came back and he looked at the blurred image of the person in front of him.
All he could tell was that the person was a woman with long, dark brown hair. She wore on a white shirt but he couldn’t tell what kind it was. But why would he care? He’s happy! He did something! But what?
The woman pulled away and held him by the shoulders. Even through his blurry vision, he could still see the bright smile she was giving him. Her hands pulled away and wrapped around his left wrist where a metal object was wrapped around. It had an adjustment band but it felt as if the main park of the bracelet was attached to his wrist. I know that. Why is that here?
His vision slowly started clearing. The walls were painted like a forest with animals dancing to music. The details of the wall painting became even more clear as he looked around the room. He heard crumpling when he shifted in his seat. When he looked down, he saw a thin paper layer between his bottom and a medical bed. A medical bed? The medical bed was a blue that really contrasted the walls.
“Felix,” the voice said in slight confusion. The boy whipped his head around to face the woman who called his name.
“Felix, wake up!” A voice called out as Felix slowly started opening his eyes. “Oh my God! Get your lazy ass up and get ready! Just because there are murder noise-canceling monster’s outside doesn’t mean we have school off apparently,” Felix groaned as he rolled off his bed and groggily started grabbing his clothes.
He turned and checked the clock, only to groan in annoyance. “Olivia, it’s 6 in the morning! School doesn’t start till 8!” Felix complained as he went to lay back down on his bed.
“Nah ah! Racheal is already downstairs, making breakfast for us. And you’re older than me, shouldn’t I be the one getting woken up?” Olivia complained as she grabbed Felix’s arm and tried to hoist him up. It took a lot of effort, considering she had a smaller build than him and that Felix let his body become dead weight.
“Have Racheal wake me up first so you’ll be last then,” Felix said as he followed Olivia down the hall in to the dinning/kitchen area. The three lived in a small apartment. It had one living area, a kitchen and dinning area, two bedrooms, and one bathroom. Racheal and Olivia shared a room while Felix had his own room for… obvious reasons. The living room was just a coach with a side table that had a radio resting on top of it. It wasn’t an ideal living situation but it was comfortable. Or, as comfortable as it could get when finding housing to escape the monsters that completely trashed their old house.
“Racheal, why do we have to leave early again?” Olivia asked the older girl who was scrapping eggs off the pan and onto three separate plates.
“There’s a special announcement from the school today and to hear it, you have to be there 30 minutes early,” she said while putting the plates on the table. Felix and Olivia said a quick thank you to Racheal for the food and started digging in.
“Can’t we just ask someone who heard the announcement what it was about?” Felix asked around the food inn his mouth. They both gave a Are you seriously asking that look. He rolled his eyes and corrected what he said, “Can’t one of you ask someone?”
“They said if you don’t show up for this announcement, you’re not allowed into the school for the rest of the week,” Racheal said.
“No school for a week!” he weakly cheered. Racheal glared at him as she got up and tossed her empty plate in the sink. Felix picked up his empty plate to and followed Racheal to the sink.
“Come on Felix. I know you don’t like it there”
“Understatement”
Racheal sighed. “I know you don’t like it there but we have to go. End of school is almost here and if you miss this week, you won’t graduate to the next class,” she reasoned.
“Plus, you have us with you,” Olivia added.
“Now go get ready. We need to leave in 15 minutes,” Racheal said, grabbing Olivia’s plate and handing it to Felix. Felix started washing the dishes as Olivia and Racheal headed to their room to start getting ready. Once he finished the dishes, he headed over to his own room and pulled out his uniform and his special headphones.
The walk to the train station was 10 minutes and he ride itself was 5 minutes. As they were getting off the train, the three saw a couple other students looking dead. Felix thought he wasn’t looking much better. The walk to school was another 5 minutes and when they walked towards the gates, officials lined the walkway and could be seen through the masses of students inside the school.
Felix looked towards Racheal who just shrugged her shoulders in response. An official came over to them and asked them to show their student ID’s, which they did. Before being let in, the official directed informed them to gather in the school gym. Felix looked at the watch on his right wrist and saw that the announcement was going to be made in 7 minutes. He showed his sisters, who just nodded, and they all walked towards the school gym, getting caught in the flow of students.
When the time hit exactly 7:30, the doors to the gym doors were closed off. Everyone gathered around started to quiet down. When no noise could be heard at all, two men walked to the middle of the gym floor. One of the men were dressed as one of the officials while the other had a formal suit on. Felix could only guess it was the principle. A mic was given to the principle and the announcement finally started.
“Hello students! I bet your all wondering why you were gathered this early in the morning. For those of you who might not know who I am, I am principle Keng and this is Officer Woo. Please turn your headphone channels to Channel 3 and listen to what he has to say,” Principle Keng handed over the microphone to Officer Woo. Shuffling could be heard through out the gym as students worked on their headphones.
Officer Woo thanked the principle before holding the microphone to his mouth, but he didn’t utter a sound. Felix could feel the tension rising between some of the students and he could start to feel it in himself to. After a long moment, Officer Woo finally started speaking. “Students. This may come as a shock to you all, so I’m going to give it to you straight on.” More silence. “The Sori Gwemul are becoming harder and harder to handle. Headquarters came up with the thought that we need young, able-bodied people to help in this fight for our future. We ask you to please comply and follow your designated lines which have been chosen through last names. Please look at the signs to know which line you’re in. If you choose not to comply, force will have to be used.”
Nobody moved. All the students just looked down at the man with the mic. “Now!” Officer Woo screamed, making all the students flinch into action. Racheal grabbed Felix and Olivia’s hand and dragged them to where the lines were forming. Chatter could be heard through the headphones, and it was stressing Felix out.
“Channel 46,” Racheal’s voice called out. Felix could barely hear it through the rest of the voices gathering through the headphones. He switched the channel and sighed a breath of relief when silence is what greeted him.
“What should we do?” Olivia’s voice came through, sounding worried.
“We have to listen for now. I’ll try to figure out along the way what to do. Just make sure to stick with each other. No matter what,” Racheal said, looking at the two. They just nodded along, holding onto her hands. They followed the flow of students as the line kept moving forward.
They reached a table at the front where one woman sat. She pointed to a sign at the front of the desk that read: Channel 7. The three siblings turned their headphones to channel 7 and waited for the woman to speak. “Names?”
“Lee Racheal, Felix, and Olivia,” Racheal said.
The woman nodded her head as she crossed out the three names on the list in front of her. “Okay, Racheal and Olivia, please move forward, Felix, please head over to that officer to the right.”
“What” Felix said, fear spiking in him.
“I’m sorry ma’am, there must’ve been a mistake,” Racheal said, slight worry being heard in her voice.
“No mistakes her. Felix has an intense medical record with a severe health problem, therefore can’t move forward. If the three of you don’t comply with this, we will move you ourselves,” the woman said, looking up at the three.
“No, we won’t comply if we have to leave our brother alone!” Olivia said, grabbing onto Felix’s hand.
The woman sighed and turned to two of the guards behind her. She wagged her finger at them, signaling for them to come over. They complied and stood directly behind her chair as she pointed at the three Lee siblings. “Bring the two girls to the proper destination and take the boy off to the side for clearance check,” the woman said. The two men nodded their heads and headed over to the three siblings.
They took hold of Racheal and Olivia’s shoulders, trying to push them away from Felix, but their grip on the boy only tightened. It hurt, but he knew that if they loosened, it would mean they would be gone. He wrapped one hand around Olivia’s wrist and the other hand over Racheal’s. The guards started grabbing the intertwined hands and started trying to pry them apart.
Olivia’s hand was first to come off. Felix’s fear started to spike some more as he felt Racheal’s hand start to loosen. He looked back at Olivia who was being dragged away, then turned back to Racheal and used his now free hand to keep his grip on his sister. Another guard came in and helped the first guard pry Racheal and Felix from each other.
Felix could hear Racheal screaming his name through the headphones, and he screamed right back. The guard holding him back changed the channel on his headphones and his sister’s scream was cut off from his headphones. His fear started spiking again. The guard carried him out of the gym and to a white tent set up near the side of the building. There were a couple other people in the tent with him who all looked towards the ground. Felix was placed on a chair in the near the side of the tent. The silence was freaking him out. He always had the comfort of his sisters with him. Either them physically next to him or the knowledge that they’re on the same channel. But now both of those comforts were gone.
Felix could feel the panic setting in, but his thoughts were to scrambled to try and fix them. A beeping sound came from the band on his left wrist. He looked down at it as a warning sign came from the small screen. Blood Pressure High it read. Felix put two fingers to his neck and felt his pulse as his breathing became un-even. His pulse was quick as Felix tried to calm his breathing down. His hand left his neck and went to his headphones. He quickly put on the music Olivia always listened to. He started breathing to the beat of the song.
As he felt his pulse slowing down, he felt a tap on his foot. When he looked down, hand that seemed to come out from underneath the tent was tapping his shoe. He waved his foot around to stop the hand from tapping. It pulled away from under the tent, but not a second later, it pushed a paper underneath the bottom of the tent. It read: Channel 13 Trust Me. Felix looked at it for a couple seconds, confused on what to do. He switched his headphones to channel 13 and was meet with silence. “Hello?” he asked to whoever was on the other side.
“Oh thank God you answered,” a voice responded.
“Who’s this?” Felix whispered. He could only guess that whatever this was didn’t go with what Officer Woo and what this whole situation called for.
“I’m Jisung. I’ve been in the same school as you since like 1st grade,” the now identified Jisung answered.
“What are you doing?” Felix asked once again.
“I’m getting out of here, duh,” Jisung said as if it was obvious.
“But why take me?”
“Because I don’t know what they’re going to do with you and because I actually very slightly know you, I want to help,” he said quietly.
A moment of silence went through the headphones as Felix tried to digest that. “So why have you never helped before?” Felix asked quietly.
“What?” Jisung asked with what seemed like genuine confusion.
“Never mind. Do you have a plan on how to get me out?”
“Yes actually. Well it was really only just meant for me but I was told it would be much easier with two people so just trust me,” Jisung said. Felix was about to ask if there were more people involved but Jisung beat him to it. “Change to international channel 8. Code is Stay.”
“What? An international channel?” Silence is what meet his question. “Hello?” More silence. He groaned in his head before switching his headphones to an international channel settings. He picked Channel 8, said the code, and was immediately meet with quick conversation.
“Someone else joined the Channel.” Conversation started to die out when others heard that voice speak up. A couple seconds of silence passed until the same voice spoke up. “Han, what did you do?”
“What? You said the escape plan would be easier with two people so I got person number two. This is my, uh, acquaintance Felix,” Jisung said, sounding both ashamed and proud at the same time.
“An acquaintance isn’t enough to be trustworthy Han,” another voice spoke up.
“Believe me Minho, we can trust him, right Felix?” Jisung asked. A moment of silence passed as everyone on the line waited for Felix’s answer.
“Uh, ya. You can trust me,” Felix answered hesitantly. He had no clue what was going on.
“You didn’t tell him what we’re doing here, did you?” Minho asked.
“No,” Jisung said quietly. A couple groans and one long sigh could be heard through the headphones. “I didn’t have time! I just now found where he is, okay?” Jisung tried to explain but no one was listening to him.
“We don’t have time to argue over this. New guy, what’s your name?” a new voice asked.
“Lee Felix,” Felix answered.
“Changbin, do your thing,” the voice said immediately after.
“Already on it,” another voice, who Felix decided was Changbin, answered. A couple moments of silence filled with fast typing passed before Changbin spoke up again. “Lee Felix, male, 16, two sisters, parents missing, same school as Han, 3.8 GPA, no criminal record.”
“See, nothing’s off with him,” Jisung said happily.
“We don’t know what his opinions of what we’re doing will be though,” the first voice from before said.
“Seungmin, you said so yourself that this would be easier with wo people. You agreed it would be smart to get someone to join the escape,” Jisung tried to reason.
“Ya, but it wasn’t a unanimous agreement which means we decided to NOT go with that idea,” the now identified Seungmin said.
“We can’t keep arguing about this. Han, we’ll talk about it when you get back but for now, he already got involved so go with the two-person plan,” the only unidentified voice said.
“Okay! So, before we do the whole escaping the school plan, we need a getting Felix out of the clearance tent plan,” Han said.
“Really Han? You grabbed someone from the Clearance tent? Changbin, any severe health issues?” Minho complained.
“Hold on, let me check,” Changbin said as more typing filtered through the headphones. Felix started to squirm in his seat as his medical records were probably being looked at. “Oh my god. Han, you really need to look through who you pick,” Changbin said as he sighed.
“Guys, it’s not as bad as you think! I’ve been in the same school as him our whole lives and nothing ever happened!” Han said trying to convince everyone to let Felix join.
“Felix, could you tell us more on your health issue?” the unidentified voice asked.
“Not here,” was his response. He was actually kind of grateful for the official in the tent if it meant he got to delay telling people about it.
“Okay, so we’ll work on getting you out of the Clearance tent first, then we’ll decide if he can join,” the unidentified voice replied. “Seungmin, pull out the layout and find out how they’re going to get to the escape plan starting point. Changbin, pull up Felix’s location on the screen. Minho, Hyunjin, and Jeongin, you continue what you’re doing and tell me if anything goes wrong,” the voice continued.
Felix was slightly confused. Who were Hyunjin and Jeongin? Felix tried to get the thoughts out of his head as he waited for instructions. “Okay, Han, we need you to get in there and be with Felix if you want to get him out.”
“I have to get him out by going in? That makes no sense,” Jisung said, sounding unsure of the plan.
“I know it doesn’t sound right but trust us. Remember we went over everything the they’re doing. That included what the Clearance tent is,” said the voice.
“I don’t remember anything about that,” Jisung said, once again confused.
“That’s because you weren’t on the channel when it was being discussed,” the voice responded.
“Oh, then I probably had a dance lesson or something. Enough about that though, please tell me what I have to do before I actually go in,” Jisung asked the voice.
“Okay, you’re going to go in, grab Felix, and run,” the voice said.
“Really? That’s it? That’s going to give away that we’re sneaking out!” Jisung exclaimed.
“Do you have a better plan? I’m not some super genius that can come up with invincible plans on the spot. I’m a fricken High School Senior!” the voice said.
“Well Hyunjin and Jeongin just finished their escape so Jeongin could probably help come up with a situation,” Minho commented.
“Alright, tell them to join our channel,” the voice responded with a groan.
“Hello Chan-hyung,” tow voices called out.
“Hello Hyunjin, hello Jeongin. Glad you got out of there okay,” the voice, now identified as Chan, responded.
“Yes we did, but Minho told us you needed some help. Do you need us there?” one of the new voices asked. They sounded pretty young but Felix knew he shouldn’t be judging people’s voice.
“It would be better if you were here. How far out are you?” Chan asked the two new voices.
“Well if someone comes pick us up like discussed, we should be about 3 minutes out, otherwise it’s a 15 minute walk,” the other voice of the two answered.
A small silence passed. “Who was supposed to go pick them up?” Chan asked. More silence, then a sigh. “Minho, go pick them up.”
“Already out the door,” Minho said.
“Alright, I guess we’re waiting 3 minutes,” Chan said as a sigh escape his lips. Felix slightly nodded his head even though the others couldn’t see. About a minute passed when Felix felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to a man looking up at him expectantly. Felix just looked at him with confusion.
The man seemed to groan and grabbed Felix’s left hand, trying to get a closer look at Felix’s band. Felix shifted in his seat uncomfortably at the attention he was receiving. The man pulled out a needle and stuck it in Felix’s arm, starting to suck out some blood. Felix looked at the man with confusion and a little bit of fright as he wondered what the man was going to do. He walked over to a desk and set the syringe bottle next to a clipboard.
“Okay, we’re here,” one of the unidentified voices said.
“Great, Jeongin, look at the situation and please come up with a way for Han and Felix to get out of there without drawing attention to themselves,” Chan said instead of greeting them.
“On it,” the voice, now known as Jeongin said. “Felix, nice to meet you! I’m going to need you to tell me what’s going on where you are,” Jeongin said as the man picked up the syringe and put Felix’s blood in a capsule.
“Uh, well this man came and took some of my blood and now put it in a capsule,” Felix answered.
“Oh, great. Just wait a couple seconds for me,” Jeongin said. The man put the capsule in a machine that Felix wasn’t even going to try and guess what it does. After a couple seconds of flashing lights, the man pulled the capsule out while the machine gave a notification to the man. The man seemed to sigh and headed over towards Felix with his clipboard. After a couple more seconds of the man writing stuff down, he handed Felix a piece of paper with information for something and a note that said, toxic. “Did you get anything from the man?” Jeongin asked through the headphones.
“Ya, paper with some kind of information and a note that says toxic,” Felix answered, unsure of how this was helpful.
“Okay, Felix, I’m going to need you to get out of your chair and walk out the tent with your paper in hand,” the boy said. Felix was frozen in his seat. Was he allowed to do that? “You’re in the Clearance test for people with medical issues. Your blood was contaminated with something, or your health issue doesn’t allow for physical activity, so therefore, you weren’t cleared. Therefore, you can leave, but you are going to help Han escape, right?” Jeongin explain.
Felix nodded his head but realized the other’s couldn’t see him, so he responded with a simple “yes.” Felix got up, held his papers in hand, and walked out of the tent.
“Okay Felix, Han should be next to the side of the tent, so just turn to your right and you should see him,” Jeongin said, and Felix looked around. Felix did as he was told and went to the right of the tent, looking over the corner to see a boy, about his age, smiling at him like an excited dog.
“Okay, Han, take him to the actual starting point that we talked about before,” Minho said with a teasing tone.
“Ya, I know,” Jisung said as he walked over to Felix. Jisung grabbed Felix’s hand and started dragging him around the tent and to the back of the gym.
“You know you wasted like half an hour by deciding to bring another person along,” Seungmin complained.
“Actually, having Felix along will actually make an easier plan,” Jeongin spoke up.
“Explain,” Chan said, sounding intrigued and concerned at the same time.
“Well Felix could divert attention away from Jisung,” Jeongin said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Please explain deeper. We’re not all as smart as you,” Changbin groaned. “It hurts my head whenever I try to understand what you mean.”
Jeongin let out a small sigh and continued on for an explanation. “Okay, so, Felix got clearance to leave, right?” A chorus of agreeing hums went through the headphones. “So he is free to leave the school, right?” A chorus of “ooooh”s went through the headphones this time. “Ya, so as Felix is leaving, he can divert the attention to himself and let Han sneak behind them and out of the school,” Jeongin finished the explanation with a slight tone of “now you understand?” “Felix, your going to need to try and make a controlled scene if possible. If not, do whatever you can to make a scene. They’ll let you go since you were already in the clear to leave,” Jeongin instructed.
Jisung pulled Felix by his wrist again and dragged him towards the entrance of the school. Once the reached the building closest to the entrance, Jisung hid behind the corner and pushed Felix out into the open. Felix tensed at the sudden action and froze in place as the thought of all the attention being on him. “C’mon Felix! Anything at all will work,” Jisung’s voice said after a couple seconds passed by.
Felix swallowed the lump in his throat and started walking towards the farther end of the entrance, away from direction Jisung was hiding. As he started walking, his nerves started to go up and he felt a little vibrate from his wrist. As he looked down at it, an idea came to him. He ignored the warning and continued walking towards the entrance. A guard headed over to him and pointed to the paper in his hands. His hands started to shake as he handed the paper over.
His head started to hurt and his breathing started to quicken as lights kept flashing from his medical bracelet. The man held the paper out to Felix, but Felix’s vision started to get blurry and he was having a hard time breathing. He tried to reach out to the paper but his hand was shaking to much to even get a grip on it. The guard in front of him said something into his channel and not a second later, the other guards headed over to Felix.
The pain in his head was becoming hard to bear and he soon collapsed onto the ground from his legs becoming weak. He felt one of the guards look at his wrist and signal something to another guard. He barely felt one of them changing the channels on his headphones but he certainly heard the change in sound. One minute, there was quiet anticipation, the next, voices filled with concern filled his ears. “Okay, I’m going to need you to breath with me,” one of the voices said.
Felix tried to find the person that carried the voice but he was to disoriented to look hard enough. He felt an arm rest against his shoulder. The hand started tapping in a slow, rhythmic pattern and he could hear forced controlled breathing matching the rhythm coming from one of the men. Felix started to follow the rhythm of breathing and could slowly feel his senses getting organized again. It took another minute until he was fully aware of where he was and why he didn’t prevent this from happening. The headache was still present and Felix knew that wasn’t going to go away any time soon.
One of the guards helped Felix up and held his hands out to help steady him if need be. Felix started walking to the entrance with all the guards watching him closely. Felix was pretty sure Jisung had enough time to slip past the guards but was to tired to check. He whispered a quick thank you into the headphones before changing the channels back to the international and putting in the code. He was meet with some excited voices.
“Felix! I never knew you could act out something like that! Why did you never join the school play or something?” Jisung asked as he ran up to the disheveled Felix.
Felix didn’t answer as he followed Jisung in whatever direction the boy was heading. Voices were flooding the headphones and Felix was trying his best to block out the noise to keep his headache at bay. Jisung grabbed Felix’s shoulder to stop him in his place. “Hey, you feeling okay?” Jisung’s worried voice asked as he looked at Felix with slight concern in his eyes.
“Ya, just a headache,” Felix said as he pressed his hand to his head to try to dull the pain.
“You sure, because you weren’t answering any of Hyunjin’s questions,” Jisung said.
“Sorry, just spaced out a bit. What was your question?” Felix asked into the headphone to whoever Hyunjin was.
“I asked you’re really okay. It didn’t seem like the distraction was an act at all and it looked really painful,” Hyunjin’s voice said, coming through the headphones with a lot of concern.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Felix mumbled. His gaze started to gradually go to the ground as slight embarrassment and awkwardness settled into him.
“Is that the reason you were in the clearance tent?” Minho asked.
Felix shifted uncomfortably at all the attention on him. “C’mon Minho. You know that’s probably a sensitive subject for him,” Chan’s voice came through this time, trying to calm down all the curious voices. “Seungmin is on his way. He should be there in a couple seconds actually,” Chan added.
Jisung held Felix by his shoulder as the two waited for Seungmin to come. Felix saw the glances Jisung was giving him. They were filled with concern but Felix still felt like he did something wrong. Like the glances weren’t for concern but because he was a freak. A couple seconds passed before a black jeep pulled along the curb, stopping in front of the two boys.
“Wow, Felix, your picture doesn’t do you justice,” is the first thing Seungmin said when Jisung opened the back door.
“Wait, he’s prettier in person?!” Hyunjin called out in disbelief.
“What, afraid you’ll lose your spot as visuals, your highness?” Jisung teased into the headphone.
A humph could be heard from the other end, followed with, “no, I’m just glad we’re getting someone else to make up for your looks.” Felix could practically hear the smirk coming through the other’s mouth. Felix looked over at Jisung and the look on his face was a mix of disbelief and amusement.
“Alright, enough. Seungmin, bring them back and we’ll figure out if Felix can stay or not,” Minho spoke up. “Felix, are you okay with having a blindfold on? We don’t want to take risks, you know?” the boy asked. Felix just hummed in response, understanding the want of secrecy.
Felix watched a Jisung pulled out a thick black ribbon and closed his eyes and he wrapped the cloth around his head. When he opened his eyes, barely any light was seeping through. He felt Jisung’s hand still on his shoulder and it calmed him down a little bit. The car ride consisted of few turns and light chatter through the headphones. Felix wasn’t really paying attention to anything they were saying. He kept remembering his sisters as they were being dragged away. His grip on the seat tightened and if Jisung saw it, he didn’t say anything about it.
When the car came to a stop, Jisung untied the blindfold from Felix’s head and let it fall into his hands. Felix got out of the car and looked at the building in front of him. It was a warehouse that looked slightly worn down but not unusable.
Jisung grabbed Felix’s wrist once again and led him towards the direction of the warehouse doors, Seungmin following behind. He expected the inside to be open and spacious, but it was a maze with piles upon piles of technology and old parts, along with trashed weapons and headphones. Felix had a could only guess what was going on here, and he doubted he was wrong. Once they reached the center of the warehouse that seemed like its own little room, all noise through the headphones quieted down.
Five boys were huddled in the center, looking at Felix. Silence was the only thing flowing through the headphones as everyone waited for someone else to speak up. Finally, a boy with long black hair decided to speak up. “Damn, he is prettier in person.”