Chum Bucket

In a world soaked in watercolor, Reggie is the only thing left blank. He's been called a chum bucket since he was a kid — the fat one, the joke, the bait — and he's spent every year since in the gym trying to outwork the name. The body changed. The feeling didn't.

Color is Reggie's tell. A kind word, a small win, an affirmation from anyone — and pigment floods through him all at once. Then it drains straight back out through the paper and leaves him white again. He keeps chasing the next hit of it. It never holds.

When the bullying follows him to work, the dream starts to run out with everything else. Then his father shows up, and what he gives Reggie isn't a pep talk so much as a handoff: only you can make your dreams come true. They finish it in a hug — and for the first time, the color floods in and stays.

The camera pulls back from that hug and finds him years later, in the ring, in full color. A professional wrestler.