Red, White and Green: A (Horror) Love Story

Her Football <3

(POV of Fourteen)

Numberblocks like me are always looking for opportunities to enjoy the things we do best. Nothing feels better than for me to call myself Extreme Fourteen right in front of my audience, as I barely succeed in my newest trick.

Picture this, dudes: You're out at the park, totally radically skating, because it's your life and your core. The wind flows freely in your face as the board takes you where you're meant to be in your favorite rink.

My eyes would normally be closed for this. It's the sensation of touch that matters here., but this time, I open my eyes and glance at the plains around me. Before landing, I take a look at nothing except nearby numbers. Such would be ordinary in Numberland. Our home was great, but it was basic. Dare I say... Boring. Really, it's just grassy plains, none of it better for skating than on pavement.

I didn't know it until it was too late, but trust me dudes, I made a terrible mistake at this very moment. This subtle chaotic decision was looking at a dudette Numberblock in a fanfiction on Wattpad.

Right then and there, I lost bits of free will as I fixated on her awesome football. She kicked it so strongly, and with such rad passion, it blew my mind. Soon enough, I feel an unexpected pain in my face. It would be my chest, but I don't have a chest! I think of my heart beating, and-

PLOP!

I face plant, nailed relentlessly by the pavement. Did you remember that I was skating in the air? Because I didn't.

But that mistake didn't matter to me. What little attention I paid to the uninteresting land, sea and sky of Numberland eroded away. In fact, nothing at all, important or otherwise, mattered except for Eleven. I wanted Eleven to date me right then and there, bros. I wanted Eleven to kick me in the shin so hard!

Ew... Did I really just think that? Now that's off. I've never ever had the hots about Eleven. Talked to her, absolutely. But we've never been real close. I've never felt the hots for anyone, really.

That adds another uncool layer of confusion to all of this. As I get up and brush myself off, my feelings sting at me even more. No weather, literal or otherwise, could be in between me and my sudden desire for Eleven. I go to her to relieve my fawning. My skateboard skips off the smooth pavement and hums as it rumbles atop the grasses. It's glued to my feet because I saw some other number do it on the internet and thought it would be funny.

"Hi Numbercool!" That's not how my slang speak works. "I mean, hey there, Eleven~" Weird, but that greeting will do for now.

She wasn't doing much of anything at the moment. She's good with football, and average at best with anything else. The same goes for the things she's usually interested in. Eleven made the same mistake as I did: look at a Numberblock presenting as the opposite gender in a Wattpad fanfiction.

Now, all that mattered to her was me. That is, half of my heart hoped so. Not even the football she held should matter more than the air around us anymore.

"H-h-h-h-h-h-h" she stuttered nervously. She wouldn't stop stuttering. She was stuck, increasingly getting flustered, and increasingly getting panicked. I had to pick her up in what felt like a misplaced rescue mission. Really, I wasn't doing much, but the love-struck half of my heart got invested in playing a hero.

If anything goes awry, One-Hundred told us, go to the tree of clubs and rest within there. The largest tree in Numberland was plenty big enough for us all to hang out in with all of our numerical clubs.  It was one of the most rad natural things in Numberland. It was sweet to be able to skate on the way high up branches, most of them thicker than a Numberblock's individual block.

With only my arms and a skateboard to boot, I simply threw Eleven's now entirely frozen body all the way up over the wooden balcony of the Made-of-Ones house. I'm surprised I nailed that. I hope she didn't get hurt. Shrugging that aside, I enter the stairwell carved inside the massive trunk. Stairs are exceedingly hard to climb on wheels. It's fortunate that I'm a skater dude. That gives me the excuse to dismiss gravity and slide my board up the curved rails until I get where I need to be. Right, dudes?

Of all the clubs up in our tree, housing all kinds of numbers, this was the only club we were both in. This, and the recently established "teens" club, but that club's higher up, and my skateboard feet want none of that altitude.

It's only when I finished climbing and reached the Made-of-Ones treehouse that I realized there was red paint on Eleven's cheeks. Unintentionally affectionately, I felt them. They were warm, the paint still wet. She looked as if she was mad blushing. I felt my own cheeks in a more normal manner. They were warm. When I removed my hand and looked upon it, there was thick red paint on the hand, too. I know that I didn't see anyone apply this to me , and that I didn't wake up like this. Looking briefly into a magic mirror, I found that the red paint was specifically only on my cheeks. Just like what happened with Eleven.

Eleven didn't even have the face-paint cheeks on earlier herself, did she?

Us barely-friends alone in the room made for a scene of silent, strange panic. She stuttered for several minutes more before passing out. If it felt off sitting with her before unsure of what to say, it felt a whole world worse sitting next to her unconscious. Many humans in this same situation would do terrible things. Whatever role I'm in right now, I'm absolutely unfit for it. Part of me liked her, but the rest of me questioned how much I even knew about her. She's a footballer, but everyone knows that. Every living thing associates her with that. That didn't make me special. Truly, I knew nothing.

In between sessions of admiring her, I sat and pondered, irritated at my admiration. No rational solutions came to my head, only lost confusion. I still didn't have a reason for my feelings for Eleven. I didn't feel close enough to her to hug her or do any of the cuddly stuff.

Still, being here with her made my heart heave as if with every beat it braved a storm. It rang for Eleven, whether or not I had anything to say to that.

I doubted Eleven ever had the hots for me, either. There's gotta be some outside force compelling us to have these feelings for each other.

Was it one of the Terrible numbers, building a strange Cupid's contraction that literally sprayed love into the air? This kind of thing is strange and nonsensical; It's right up their alley. But I dismissed the thought. It didn't sound like something they had enough control over us to pull off. Besides, they'd have left some indication that it was their doing. They don't deal in the dark anymore.

I mentally repeated what it meant to be in a Wattpad fanfiction. Twelve said that there's human dudes, very, very far away. She says they control us sometimes, and this 'Wattpad' website was a go-to for them to configure our lives.

I assume that it's a human making us have these feelings. None of it makes sense to me, but neither does the love to begin with. Maybe this time, two wrongs make a right?

"You do like pairing us, don't you, human bros?" I mumbled to myself.

That's why we're here to begin with.

Maybe that was the way to end this story: call out the relationship and throw these dudes off our case.

I snap myself out of that theory. I'm sliding in wild guesses. Anything could be happening right now, and, honestly, human involvement is about as likely as an elaborate prank which involve excessive use of invisible spray. Neither of them were any more realistic than the physics of Numberland.

But that's it. These things don't make sense. I haven't a theory or a clue of one to settle on. Despair sets in and fills the air I breathe. It chokes out the last of my ability to think rationally in that moment of time.

I looked upon Eleven as she lay fainted, worried most of all for her. Whether that was my own genuine care for her or someone pressing it onto me... I can't be sure.