Why do I always see the initial value of a static variable?

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C#

I have some odd behaviour in code that is seemingly so simple I have run out of places to look for the bug.

In the class below, the function RunStepNormally() is called. Good so far.

I then call SomeClass.InitiateTimeSeek(), which is confirmed by a breakpoint being hit. Still good so far.

The problem comes next cycle. In RunStep(), the value of _runningRealTime is true, even though it was explicitly set to false in InitiateTimeSeek().

If I change the initialisation value of _runningRealTime to false then it remains at false. In other words, in RunStep(), I always see whatever value _runningRealTime is initialised to and never see anything different.

public abstract class SomeClass<T>
{
	public void RunStep()
	{
		if( _runningRealTime )
			RunStepNormally();
		else
			RunStepTimeSkipActive();
	}

	public static void InitiateTimeSeek()
	{
		_runningRealTime = false;
	}

	public static void CancelTimeSeek()
	{
		_runningRealTime = true;
	}

	public void RunStepNormally() {}

	public void RunStepTimeSkipActive() {}


	private static bool _runningRealTime = true;
}

Because this code is so simple, I get the feeling I must be missing something really dumb. Does anyone have any suggestions what may be happening?

What I have tried:

My first thought was that new instances of the class were being created repeatedly, but a breakpoint in the constructor (not shown) is hit only once, as I would expect.