(This story was authored by Noemie Savard, which would explain why it's better than the others) "TOUT'S DISAPPEARANCE" Pohang, the team after Shilla Night This story is told from a different perspective than the other stories. Being the only girl on the team, there are at least some little things that were different for me, I think. I have one precise example in mind (and I’m also seizing the opportunity to complain a bit...). I'm in the girls’ dormitory - the four boys are in an other dorm, of course. So the four of them are together, in two room facing each other, and I'm all by myself in my room, which is at least a two-minute walk away (and two minutes in Pohang’s hot and humid weather is far). And every single time we have to meet, it's in front of the boys’ dormitory. Or if we have some free time, I have to walk over there if I don’t want to stay alone, because they would never think of visiting me! Enough complaining, here’s my story. It's Tuesday night. We just spent the evening with our team leaders, who have already seen our exams and know what kind of award we can or cannot expect... even if we don’t have the final results yet, we know if we did poorly or well. So when we’re back at the university dorms, some of us are less happy than... than the day before let’s say. I go to the boys’ place, as usual. But then there is nothing to do, it’s pretty late, and it seems that everyone is ready to go to sleep. Ali has gone somewhere, Peter and Amir are going to take a shower. So I decide that it’s time for me to leave. I wish good-night to Tout and I go back to my solitary room. Up to now, everything is normal. I’m just reading before going to bed, as usual, when suddenly there is a knock on my door. I think it’s the only time (or one of the very few times) anyone knocked on my door. So already it’s weird. I open, and see Amir and Peter standing at the door. What are they doing here? They’ve never visited me before... They ask me if Tout is there. Of course he isn’t. I just left him in his dorm, and why would he come here anyway? Then I learn that Tout has disappeared from his room. They are a bit worried (or at least expressing the possibility that maybe we should worry), especially since Tout was somewhat down since the meeting with our leaders. At that point I suddenly remember Tout’s last words before I left him. He said, and I quote: “It’s the first time that Peter doesn’t take his shower with me.” Here we are... the weird disappearance, the depressed look, the final words of disappointment =)... enough to send us out on a covert night-time mission of finding Tout and bringing him back alive! (Of course we didn’t actually go to the extreme of saying that we had to bring him back alive) So the adventure starts. We go back to the boys’ dormitory. We check every floor, every common room, every bathroom. Not there. We ask people around. Not helpful. We go to the dormitory where the Chinese team is. No Tout there either. We walk up and down the alley. Go back to the boys’ dorm. Check every floor again. At one point we see Ali; he hasn’t seen Tout either. It’s starting to be weird... he has to be somewhere! It has already been half an hour since we started our search, now it’s almost turning into a real mission! Still looking for Tout, we bump into Chak-Hee, back from her late-running daily meeting with the other guides. She joins our search team, especially worried about Tout’s disappointed words concerning the shower with Peter. So we keep walking in the hot and humid night of Pohang, with the quest of solving the mystery of Tout’s disappearance (or more precisely, with the aim of finding him). We decide to go look around the little pond; maybe Tout has decided to go sit there and meditate. But no. As we walk around, we encounter a few people, but none of them is Tout and the dark waters of the pond make the atmosphere even creepier... It has been one hour that we have been walking, wondering, worrying (and I thought that we were all going to sleep an hour ago!) Actually, we did not find Tout that night. He found us. We had gone practically everywhere, and so had stopped to think of what to do next. And there arrives Tout, out of nowhere: “Hey guys, what are you doing here?” Well, we're looking for you! What are you doing? Tout had been to the library. For all that time that we were looking for him and worrying. That’s all. As for “it’s the first time that Peter doesn’t take his shower with me...” well that's an entirely different story altogether!