Colorless

Part 1: Hope

Not quite seven yet, the boy looked at his father's dark goatee and desired in his heart to have one when he got older. He wanted to be as strong as his father someday. They were at the porch at night, just looking at the stars. The son marveled at how vast the sky was and how many stars there were. He had tried to count them before, but had never succeeded. He almost always stopped when he got past thirty. He could count high, but it was the patience that he lacked. So, he would just look for the brightest star in the sky, or a shooting star to make a wish.
"Look, Daniel!" his father pointed out a shooting star for him.
"Make a wish! If you make a wish on any shooting star, it will come true!" his father looked at him with a serious expression.
The boy believed him. He couldn't come up with anything, but then he remembered that he had seen a puppy in the store before and wished for a puppy.
"What did you wish for?" his father asked him.
"A puppy!" The little boy squealed.
"Ahh, you're not supposed to tell anyone. Now it won't come true, " his father teased him.
The boy thought for a second, "But you said that anything I wished for on the star would come true!" he yelped.
"That's true," his dad seemed to ponder with his thoughts for a while.
"What is something that you hope for?"
"The puppy!" the boy sang out.
"Besides that."
"I hope to grow big and strong like you someday. I hope to be just like you," the boy looked up at his father with big, blue eyes.
The father smiled for a second, but then muttered under his breath something that the boy could barely hear.
"You don't know what you wish for."
"Come, let's go inside," he said louder. He could feel eyes watching him from a distance.