Jongin came in early to school that day hoping he could catch whoever it was that used the room before him. He had waited a long time the last afternoon at the place the boy had requested him to be but he never came to take his belonging back. It confused Jongin but he decided that with any luck he’d just run into him in the broadcasting room.

He didn’t know why he was getting so bothered by this boy, Do Kyungsoo, but he was. He took careful steps towards the room and half expected that there would be someone there. He reached the door of room and slowly opened it and looked in. He sighed seeing as there really wasn’t anyone there, contrary to what he hoped. He closed the door behind him and took a deep breadth. He walked up to the cassette player that was still on the table and noticed how it did not have a cassette in it today. He wondered if he reached even earlier than the boy today. It was strange to Jongin, how he asked around if anybody knew of a Do Kyungsoo at their school and everyone replied in denial.

Jongin brought out his bag in front of him and searched through it, pulling out the cassette he still had with him. He put it inside the player and played it again.

And I want you to know I love
I hope you know I really love you.

He stopped playing it and instead took the tape out. It was not named, but the date still bothered Jongin. 02/09/2007. It didn’t make sense to him that the boy dated it 2007. But he decided it didn’t matter. He thought that he would just leave the tape in the room for the boy to take it himself. He also decided to leave a recording for him, hoping he realised that he stood Jongin up the day before. The room was filled with spare cassettes and so he picked one up and proceeded to record a message for him.

*

Jongin left the room soon, realising that it was almost time for his first class of the day to start. He started walking away from the corridor and as soon as he took a turn at the corner he bumped into someone. It happened to be Mr. Park, who clumsily dropped the papers he was carrying as a result of the collision. 

They both started to pick up the papers while Jongin kept mumbling apology after apology.

Mr. Park just chuckled, “You don’t have to apologise, Jongin. It wasn’t completely your fault we bumped into each other. I wasn’t paying attention, either. So don’t worry about it.”

Jongin nodded in acknowledgement while Mr. Park picked up the last of the papers. “I’ll help you with that.” Jongin offered.

“If you wish to.” Mr. Park replied, handing him half of the papers and starting to walk away, motioning for Jongin to follow him. As they were walking together, Mr. Park asked again, “So, what were doing in that corridor anyway? There isn’t really anything over there I’d assume.”

Jongin gulped. Technically the students weren’t even supposed to go to that part of the school and the first time he did, he had expected all the rooms to have been locked. But the broadcasting room wasn’t and instead it provided shelter to him. But he wasn’t sure how that story would sit with one of the school staff who could actually get him into trouble for breaking school rules.

“I was just roaming around. Since I’m not very fond of being surrounded by too many people, I was just looking for quieter places.” he replied.

Mr. Park nodded and said, “Well next time don’t go there since you aren’t allowed to, okay?”

Jongin nodded his head as they reached the staff room and handed Mr. Park his papers. He thanked Jongin and Jongin bowed to him before turning back.

*

During lunch, Jongin did not go to the broadcasting room. He decided to stay with the other students even if it wouldn’t be his preferred option. Joonmyun was kind enough to not outright reject him when he asked to sit with his friends. But it still did not feel right.

“Wanna make a bet? I say one week. One week before Kris dumps that poor Chinese kid.”

Jongin looked up at the boy with a square jaw and spectacles whom he knew to be Jongdae. He and some other guy, Baekhyun was it, were talking and laughing amongst themselves. Jongin looked into his bag puling out his headphones in hopes that he’d be able to tune out them and all others around him. He found that he still had his walkman with him but realised he didn’t have the tape anymore. He didn’t want to listen to any other music at that moment and it almost made me groan. 

Jongin glanced around the table he was sitting and caught a girl staring at him. She gave him a shy smile but Jongin did not reciprocate. It was getting increasingly harder for him to listen to the people blabbering on and on and he wondered if he should go to the broadcasting room again considering Mr. Park asked him not to. It was not in accordance with the school rules, yes, but he wasn’t the only one visiting the place considering Kyungsoo did. And it was open even before he found it.  And so he went off to the room again. 

Entering it, he placed his bag on one of he chairs and noticed that Kyungsoo’s cassette was still left on the table. He sighed when he realised that the boy did not take it back. He noticed that the pocket of the player was open and there was still a tape inside it but it wasn't the one he had left in earlier. 

He closed the pocket and played it, “I don’t know what you want but can I please just have my tape back? I don’t know why you’re not giving it back to me or why you’re lying about waiting for me yesterday or leaving the tape on the table.” There was a sigh. “And you also dated your tape 2014. I don’t really have the time or patience to go along with your jokes. So please, stop it.”

Jongin was surprised by the recording. He hadn’t lied about anything but here he was, being accused of such. He looked at the tape that still lay on the table and wondered how Kyungsoo hadn't seen it. There was also the point he made about the date he wrote on the tape. He told Jongin to stop it with the jokes, but he wasn't joking. Jongin took out the tape that was still inside the player and turned it around. Do Kyungsoo- 02/14/2007. Jongin sighed. This was crazy. He was almost starting to believe that maybe his cassettes were travelling through time. He sighed and put in another cassette and started speaking after pressing the record button.

"I never lied about anything. The cassette is still lying in front of me on the table because you didn't pick it up from here. And it is 2014. I don't know why you date your tapes 2007 though. If you do want to find me, just find me at the end of school in front of the gym since I have Mr. Jung Yunho's PE class. My name is Kim Jongin." With that he cut off the recording and left the cassette inside the player.

He got up and glanced through the room. Something kept bugging him about their different dating of the tapes. Jongin noticed that the cupboards in the room were still full of files and other papers. He walked up to them and began looking through them one by them. He couldn’t believe he might be falling for the boy’s nonsense. After a while he finally found a file with the year 2007 inscribed on it. He pulled it out and opened it only to see it was a record of the list of members of the broadcasting club in 2007. There were only five names so it didn’t take him long to go through them and read the last name on the list which almost felt like a well thought out joke. Do Kyungsoo.

A/N Thank you for reading and to all those who have subscribed to this story <3