You were just seventeen when you died.

Or well not really ‘died’ since you can’t really be categorized as completely dead. Just sorta half-dead, semi-dead, a-little-bit-more-not-alive-than-alive. That sort of concept. Basically you are neither dead nor alive, and that is all that can really be said about the situation. It doesn’t quite make a good over-dinner story to tell, but then again it’s not like you have any dinners to attend anymore, nor the grand delusion you ever will.

Your name was Choi Junhong. Correction: still is Choi Junhong. Although these days you go by Zelo. It’s easier to say, much easier to remember. In the long years between your not-exactly-death-day to present time life has blurred into one rather unmemorable strip of grey and white. Things have oft become hard to recall. Yongguk disapproves of this behavior, but you disapprove of his need to feel disapproval. Your life is your own, no matter how influenced it was by Yongguk-hyung.

But never mind that. We’re getting off point here. All that matters is that you were born Choi Junhong and somewhere along the way you became Zelo. The two are flipsides of the same coin; neither is more you than the other. They say it is not the name that makes the person; it is the journey they walk, the life they lead.

And the life that you – Choi Junhong, Zelo, boy-who-is-neither-dead-nor-alive – lead, that is what this story is about.

And so, just like how all stories should proceed, shall we start from the beginning?