Runner's Delight

Jim and Cathy found themselves in the school's canteen. As with breakfast, lunch was really good, nowhere near what they were used to eating. If they did not see all the other people eating the same food, they would have refused to believe it was mass produced instead of homemade.

As they were expected to, Cathy sat at his left and a girl he didn't knew sat on to his right. The background sound in the canteen was both the usual clutter with dishes and mumbled chatter and soft tones of classical music played through a sound system.

After a few minutes, the music stopped abruptly and the anchor woman's voice came on with much higher volume than the music had, "We are sorry to interrupt your meal, but it seems that quite a few have forgotten, that this is 'The week of Friendliness'. Please make sure you greet the people to your sides."

Just like that, the music reappeared, but the room was otherwise silent. Most hadn't thought of it and the implications of this week were just sinking in to them.

Jim turned to Cathy, put his arms around her wrist and kissed her passionately with plenty tongue. He was very happy to feel her really kissing him back. After quite a few seconds he tore himself away from Cathy and turned to his right.

Just at that moment, it hit him. He was about to French kiss a girl he had just met, and had never even spoken to. It was beyond surreal. He quickly considered the norms, should he introduce himself and then kiss her or how? But before he came to any conclusion, she grabbed him, pulled him in close in a bear hug and kissed his socks off. As they broke apart some seconds later, he breathlessly whispered: "Hi, I'm Jim". She only smiled widely and purred, "Jill".

Jim was about to ask Jill from where she was, but he felt his head turned by soft hands and not to be outdone, Cathy kissed him vigorously. Jim managed to forget both the girl and his question in the process. As he managed to break free, he noticed that there still was a large amount of kissing going on - that would most definitely not have been tolerated on other high schools, let alone encouraged.

Thoughtful, he turned back to his food and light conversation with Cathy.

A few minutes later, a lot of soft chimes where heard in the canteen. It turned out, that all PDAs acoustically announced that they got a message. As the students checked them, it turned out they had all received details about their next class.

Jim looked at Cathy, "Great, I got a cross country to run, I love it. Are you running too?"

Cathy looked sad at him, "No, as much as I liked to run, overdoing some handball training ruined my knees for running. But I got something great too. We are going to row on the lake behind the building".

Jim frowned slightly; he had never been a great swimmer and tried to avoid water if possible.

Later, just as Jim was about to get up, the music ended abruptly again and the anchorwoman announced, "As so many of you forgot before, we thought we should remind you, that you must also friendly greet when you leave and when you meet people on your way to your activities."

And the music started again. Jim stood up, grabbed Cathy and kissed her passionately, while letting his hands run freely on her back. Not unexpected her hands also caressed his back. He then turned to Jill, and gave her the same treatment, and whispered on his way out, "A pleasure". She just grinned and nodded.

On his way to the locker room his PDA had assigned him too, he met quite a few other students (and not all in his age group). He made sure to do his duty and greet them friendly. He noticed that most of the girls he "greeted", did even bother to tell him their name (or even say anything).

He arrived at the locker room with only seconds to spare and decided that even though the Week of Friendliness was fun, it was hardly efficient.

This time, he was not really surprised as the door with the male symbol ended up in the mixed gender locker room and that quite a few people (of both sexes) already were in different stages off undress. As this was class time, he didn't have to friendly greet them (in fact they were discouraged due to time issues). After a few minutes he had changed into the running clothes that lay ready for him. Idly he though about how fast being naked in a locker room with girls ended up being almost normal (and he immediately understood the wise part of the separate doors).

The locker room was on the ground floor and exited directly into the yard behind the school (as seen from the street). On his way out, he saw yet another flat screen monitor and, as he walked towards it, his name appeared on the screen.

He walked to it, and it told him that he was assigned a route based on his physical skills, and that he had to follow the red markers and that he should finish within 1 hour. It also told him that his ring would monitor his time between checkpoints and his heart rate. After the brief instruction the screen displayed "have fun" and faded out.