characters will store numbers and characters, because numbers are represented by characters like "4" and "7" just like 'characters' (letters) are stored as characters like "a" or "G" or ">" for that matter.

however if you make a character array, or #include the string library and use a "string" datatype, you can then hold characters.
When you want to perform an arithmetic operation on a character ( or string[x] ), you can cast the character "7" as the integer "7". or with any number or letter or even symbol.

char characterNAME = '2' ;
int integerNAME = 3 ;
cout << integerNAME + int(characterNAME) ;

the output should be 5 naturally, unless you changed the value for 2 or 3.
cast integers as characters:
int ONE = 1 ;
char characterstoredinONE = char(ONE) ;

thank you, and </day> goodnight...