Do Not Answer If You Hear Your Name in the Empty Old Building Broadcast Room

There is a broadcast room on the second floor of our school’s old building that is barely used now.

It is a small room past the storage closet beside the art room, and the sign above the door still says “Broadcast Room.” These days, most announcements are made with the equipment in the new building, so the old broadcast room is mostly used when teachers need to find a cable or when students take things out during festival preparation.

But the seniors had another name for that room.

The Morning Assembly Room.

When I first heard that, I thought it was kind of funny. A broadcast room is a broadcast room. Why call it an assembly room?

I first found this story in a literature club notebook. Between old magazine drafts, there was a sheet that looked like a broadcast club schedule. Most of the date had been rubbed away, and at the top, someone had written:

“5 minutes before assembly. Check the mic.”

Below that, in different handwriting, there was one more line.

“Do not answer if it calls your name.”

I stared at that sentence for a while.

At school, names are called all the time. During attendance, when performance test lists are checked, when someone is told over the speakers to come to the teacher