Chapter 24: Red

“So, what would you like?” Sam asked while we were browsing the many different snack options.

“I’m not sure, I would’ve liked some fish and chips, but it looks like they don’t have any,” I pout.

She laughs “You sure do like your fish, don’t you?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Hey, why don’t you try that?” Sam points at another customer who walks away with fries and what looks like fried meatballs.

“Oh? What is it?”

“Fries, obviously.” She giggles.

I tap my hand on her head. “I meant the fried meat baka.”

“Ooooh. Those are called bitterballen, it’s something Dutch and Belgian immigrants brought here during the Great Immigration. It’s pretty tasty - I’d say it’s one of my favourite snacks.”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of those! My family is originally from Belgium, but my sister and I never really got in touch with a big part of the culture.”

“I guess that explains your French last name.”

“Yeah.” I reply while walking over to the counter.

“Where are you going?” Sam asks.

“To order the stuff you told me about, I’m curious to how it tastes now.”

“Haha, alright, I’ll pay for you.”

“You know you don’t have to, right?”

“I know, I know. But you are here because I asked you to be.” She smiles and takes out her wallet and orders for me.

It doesn’t take that long before the order is ready.

“Should I show you where the grandstands are?”

“Yesh pwease.” I say, already with a bitterbal in my mouth. They are actually surprisingly tasty.

“Do you like it?”

“Yesh!”

“That’s good! They are even better with ketchup.” She smiles and starts leading the way.

It’s only a two-minute walk towards the grandstands, the gymnasium itself is a bit smaller than I expected and the stands have room for like 100 people maximum.

“Hmmm…” I say, debating whether I should put another bitterbal in my mouth or save them for a bit later.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks worryingly.

“I expected the place to be bigger.” I look around the room a bit more. “It looks a lot bigger from the outside.”

“That’s because this is only one sport court. There’s a couple more. We even have an Olympic pool!”

“Oh wow!”

“Yes! It’s completely roofed with a skylight which is incredible when it’s a bit cloudy.”

“It definitely sounds cool.”

“I can take you there once...if you want of course.” Sam rubs the back of her head nervously.

“Isn’t it closed to public?”

“Not at all. Well, obviously when there’s contests going on it is. But when there aren’t any going on, it’s free at all times. They even open at night! Not a lot of people know it’s open to everyone so it’s never really crowded. I’ve had the pool all to myself a couple of times.”

“I’d definitely be interested in that.” I smile, making Sam blush a little.

“G-great! I’ll have to get dressed real fast now or the coach will be angry at me. See you in a bit!”

“Okido!” I wave her goodbye, almost making her trip on the edge of the grandstand.

While I’m waiting for the game to start a couple more people come in, including a couple of guys who come sitting a bit behind me.

“Which teams are playing today?”

“I have no clue, dude. But it doesn’t really matter. Seeing girls play is always nice.”

“Even though they suck at the game.” They both start laughing.

Oh great, it’s those kind of people… 

I see some other people in the grandstands staring daggers at them, but no one says a word.

Not long after that the teams slowly start entering the field, including Sam. It’s the first time I’ve seen her wearing shorts, and I notice one of her legs is completely made out of metal, almost identical to the other in all but colour.

That’s a pretty neat feat of bionics if you ask me.

She quickly walks over to me, when I hear the twats behind me speak up.

“Dude , they have a cyborg, that’s not fair for the other team, is it.”

“Yeah, also what a shame, she would be a cute girl as well but sadly she’s a freak. Fucking robot.”

By the painful look on Sam’s face she’s clearly heard their remarks.

Anger fills my mind. “Excuse me, what the hell do you think you are saying!?” I immediately stand up, turn around and yell in their faces.

“Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here, judging everyone by their looks? Objectifying everyone and being incredibly rude and disgusting? Do you have any idea what she has gone through? That maybe your shitty remarks might hurt her or bring up painful memories?”

“Hey chill ou…”

“NO! Get the fuck out of my sight!” A red haze goes over my vision as I feel power surging through my body, especially my right hand getting incredibly warm. The aura in front of me, changing dramatically. I see fear rising in the eyes of the two fucknuggets.

“W-w-we are sorry!” they exclaim in choir before hastily standing up. “L-l-let’s go.” They quickly run of before I get to say anything else but I keep furiously staring after them until a hand on my shoulder pulls me out.

“Amicia, are you alright?”

“Huh?” The anger subsides in an instant, making me hear my surroundings again, apparently the other supporters and even some basketball players have started applauding my actions without me noticing.

“Whew, for a second I thought you were going to kill them.” Sam sighs out with relief. “Those idiots come to the games of girls’ clubs all the time. I think this time might’ve been the last, going by their faces.”

“Uhh..” I’m still pretty confused to what happened, I’ve never felt that kind of rage before in my entire life. “I hope so..” I look back at the exit.

“Hey Amicia?” Sam asks for my attention, and as I turn my face back to her, she gives me a kiss on my cheek. “Thanks for defending me.” I start blushing furiously, which makes Sam giggle as she walks back to her team. A few of her teammates who watched the kiss are whistling and are cheering her on. “Woohoo! You go, girl!”. This time it’s clear Sam is a bit flustered by it as well.

I’m still a bit paralysed by her kiss as I sit myself back down on my seat, popping another bitterbal in my mouth. Delicious.

Five minutes later the game finally starts. I’m not going to claim I know anything about competitive basketball at all, but I can definitely tell Sam’s team is the better one on the field. Well, at least they’ve scored more points than the others. But I’ve been forced to watch enough sports programs to know commentators sometimes disagree, saying the opposite team clearly deserved victory. I mean, how can they deserve it if they lost? But again, what do I know. At halftime the score is 36 to 25 for the home team. Sadly for the other team their lucky break didn’t come in the second half either, ending the game on a 72 to 52 score. Also I ran out of bitterballen ten minutes after half-time, which is very sad. At least I still have the fries to nom on I guess.

“So, what did you think of the game?” A sweaty and exhausted Sam comes up to the grandstands.

“I think you all did a very good job.” I smile, trying to hide my total ignorance of the sport.

“You don’t know much about basketball do you?” She laughs.

“Nope.” I smile. “Do you think you did well?” I return her question.

“We definitely didn’t do badly, I think a lot of us where a bit fired up because of your actions to be honest. But I think that also counted for the other team.”

“Yep! Thanks for that, it’s nice to have the crowd support a nice atmosphere.” One of the opposing team’s members comes over to the stands as well. “Well played by the way.” She extends her hand towards Sam.

“Same to you.” Sam smiles as she shakes the girl’s hand.

The other girl waves goodbye as her team leaves for the changing rooms.

“I probably should get a shower too. Meet you outside?”

“Sam, c’mon! Stop drooling all over your girlfriend!” one of her team members shouts.

“Geez, shut up Max!” She yells back with a blush on her face.

I start giggling. “You can go. I’ll wait on the bench where we met earlier today.”

“Okay, cya in a bit!”

As I wander outside of the gymnasium towards our meeting spot I can’t help but think about the incident with the two idiots.

Whatever that was, I hope it won’t happen again, luckily Sam was there to stop me this time. But if she wasn’t, I don’t know what I would’ve done...