The Baggage You Carry • Jung Hoseok

Part 3 • Y/n

Friday, March 20
Southbound Train
Gyeongui-Jungang Line, Seoul
7:24am
Y/n

You couldn't move, mostly because you were in complete shock and awe at the predicament you found yourself in.

You stared down at the bag in your hands and started mentally beating yourself up. Who is actually dumb enough to not check that the bag they grabbed was actually theirs?

Well, apparently you.

You were so angry, and had no idea what to do now. Like, you couldn't tell anyone about what happened. You scoffed as you pictured the conversation in your head.

("Yes, hi. I accidentally took someone's bag instead of mine."

"How did you manage that miss?"

"I was in a state of panic because I'm living in a foreign country I don't know much about and you guys have the most confusing subway station in the world and the app is great and all, but it can still get confusing!")

You can even imagine the blank stare the poor subway employee would give you as you stumbled your way through your explanation in broken Korean. You'd rather choose death than go through that embarrassment.

Needless to say, you were having a complete nervous meltdown on the train and you had to try to compose yourself in about 30ish minutes in order to try to teach South Korea's future the English language.

No pressure whatsoever.

You examined the bag that you had grabbed instead of yours, and you decided it was pretty reasonable why you mistook this bag for yours. It was the same brand, and the same black leather. The only noticeable difference (that would be easily missed if you were to grab in a state of panic for, whatever reason) was instead of an enamel shark pin of the lip of your bag, there was a weird looking pin of a sun with a smiley face?

You tapped your foot as you stared at the bag and tried to convince yourself to not go through the contents of the bag. Like, it would be wrong - totally wrong, morally wrong. But, you didn't know who's bag you grabbed and there might be a clue about who this person was so maybe you could get your bag back.

You hummed and hawed about it until finally you decided that you absolutely needed to go through this bag and see if you could find any sort of inclination about who owns this bag (also so you could get your bag back - assuming this person had also grabbed your bag.)

You opened the bag and started feeling around for anything that might help you determine who's bag you accidently took (see also: stole). You felt a bunch of stuff in the bag but nothing really felt like a wallet or ID. You scowled, because suddenly this was way harder than you originally thought it would be.

Suddenly, your hand grazed a piece of hard, rectangular plastic and you felt a tiny bit of optimism - maybe this will help you find out who's bag this is. You grinned and pulled out the plastic only to have your grin falter.

A cassette tape?

Those are still a thing?

You looked it over and yup - it was just a basic cassette tape.

The cover was a neon fuschia colour and in big yellow and blue bubble letters were the words: Hope World.

"Hm, interesting. Some indie band maybe?"

You put the cassette back into the bag and continued your search. Among some of the other items in the bag were some oil-blotting wipes for your face, a USB stick, battery pack for your phone, a leather bound journal that looked decently old, and a couple of (what you assumed were) protein bars, but you couldn't be certain - after all, the labels were in Korean.

You sighed in complete frustration, because what the heck were you gonna do now?

Like, you couldn't just drop the bag back off at Seoul Station. You had heard a rumour from your neighbour that someone dropped off a random bag at the Seoul Station (ie Seoul's biggest passenger train Station) and he was later arrested on grounds of domestic terrorism.

You don't know if the charges were laid due to him dropping off the bag at the station, or because he actually intended to cause a scene of domestic terrorism.

Either way, you did not want to get caught up with the law in a completely foreign country over a bag with a stupid sun pin and a cassette tape (to be honest though, the pin was pretty cute and you would probably be on the look out for it).

So, you guessed you unintentionally traded bags and this one was now yours because you had no way of finding the owner.

Neat.

You looked at the time on your phone and you subtly thanked every god you could think of that you didn't put your phone in your bag and that you had invested in one of those phone cases that holds your cards (even though your friends constantly made fun of you for it). You should be pulling up to the Eungbong station shortly, and it would only be a quick walk to the school from there.

Unintentionally, you started thinking about the person who had this bag before you unceremoniously scooped it up.

Were they young? Maybe they were old - they must've been old because they willingly carried a cassette tape around with them (although if they weren't old, then they were definitely hipster as hell.)

You figured that they couldn't be old because this person had some things in their bag that you couldn't imagine a little grandma or grandpa walking around Seoul with. A USB stick, blotting papers and a portable phone charger, to name a few.

After about 10 minutes later or so, you were pulling up to the train station and you started mentally checking through the list in your head of things that needed to be done for the day. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the moment that you stepped off the train when you realized that you didn't have your lesson plan or any of the things you needed were in your bag.

The one that was potentially at the Hannam Train Station still, or in the possession of a completely random stranger.

Well, wherever it was, it wasn't with you. And that was a huge problem.

What the heck were you supposed to do now?