Access lateinit variable in Companion class

Question

I have the following code:

abstract class Database : RoomDatabase() {

    companion object {
        @Volatile
        lateinit var INSTANCE: Database
            private set

        fun init(context: Context) {
            val initialized = ::INSTANCE.isInitialized
            if (!initialized) {
                INSTANCE = Room.databaseBuilder(...

which compiles just fine for some reason. At run-time, when the application started on device this exception is thrown:

java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: No static field INSTANCE of type Lpersistance/Database; in class Lpersistance/Database$Companion; or its superclasses (declaration of 'persistance.Database$Companion' appears in /data/app/split_lib_slice_1_apk.apk) at persistance.Database$Companion.init(Database.kt:22)

Checking decompiled version of the class, I found that INSTANCE variable defined in Database class:

public abstract class Database extends RoomDatabase {
   private static volatile Database INSTANCE;

.IsInitialised code actually represented in Java version that way:

public static final class Companion {
   public final Database getINSTANCE() {
      return Database.access$getINSTANCE$cp();
   }
   private final void setINSTANCE(Database var1) {
      Database.INSTANCE = var1;
   }

   public final void init(Context context) {
      boolean initialized = INSTANCE != null;  // error here
      if (!initialized) { ...

It's clear that the issue is that the INSTANCE variable must be referenced as Database.INSTANCE.

Cannot understand, why the code compiles but throws run-time exception and how can I check if lateinit variable is initialized?