***Hello! Thank you for being interested in my story! Just so there's no confusion, because the magical girls and their witch forms have different names, I have chosen to name Patricia Akiko Takahashi. Enjoy!***

"Akiko, make sure to take an umbrella to school today. It's raining," her mother called from the first floor of the house.

"Yes, mother," she called back in her soft voice.

She was looking in the mirror at herself. Her white, red, and blue sailor uniform that she wore for her high school was her favorite outfit. Ovular glasses with black plastic rims were perched on her nose. She could hardly see without them. With a mild sigh, she pulled self-consciously at her bangs. Her black hair was very long and straight. Her bangs were the same. They had grown quite long, nearly obstructing her vision, and she hadn't bothered to ask her mom to cut them back for her yet. She didn't care about her appearance. Why should she? No one at school thought she was attractive. She didn't have a boyfriend or any real friends. The only people who were nice to her were only pretending to like her because she was the class rep and wanted favors. She knew that from the beginning, but it still hurt her when she heard her so-called friends talking badly about her.

Akiko sighed again and grabbed her umbrella. As she trekked to school, a beloved place to her, she just wished that she could be more popular with her peers.

The closer she got to school, the more students passed her. No one greeted her no one even looked twice in her direction.

Throughout all her classes, she felt the same way; invisible.

Until, that is, class ended.

"Akiko-chan!" a girl from her class called loudly. She made a big waving gesture and ran over excitedly.

Akiko turned on her fake, polite smile.

"I'm supposed to be at tennis practice in five minutes but I'm supposed to take this stack of books to the library first," she said, gesturing at a tall stack of books on a desk inside classroom 1-4. "I can't make it there and back to tennis in time. Can you do it for me?"

"Well, I-," she started.

"You can right? I mean, we're friends, right?"

"O-of course," she accepted immediately. She wasn't one to bring up any sort of confrontation.

Slender and weak, she struggled to get the books to the library. Half of the school's baseball team passed her on her way down the hall. They all pretended not to see her.

In middle school, she had been nominated as class rep one year as a joke and actually won the title. That was when her classmates realized how easy she was to push around. Since a lot of students from her middle school also attended her high school and were in her class, she was easily elected as a representative once again. She kind of enjoyed being class rep, in the aspects of helping around the school and even doing paperwork. If her classmates would only befriend her for real, she thought, she would have a dazzling high school life. Unfortunately, they didn't try and neither did she. She was too reserved to take initiative.

After dropping off the heavy books, she had some paperwork to fill out. It didn't take her long at all, so it was time for her to go home. She passed several club rooms on her way out of the school. It sounded like the students inside were always having fun and working hard, no matter which club she passed. Oh well… as much as it seemed like fun, she knew she'd be lying to herself if she said that she'd join a club if she wasn't a class representative.

When she went to grab her umbrella before she left, it wasn't there. She double and triple checked that it wasn't anywhere before giving up. She looked outside and grimaced. It was pouring.

There was a konbini not too far from the gates of the school. She could buy an umbrella there. She took a deep breath and made a run for it, covering her head as best she could with her school bag.

After she bought the cheapest umbrella she could find, not that it would do her much good now that she was already soaking wet, she slowly walked the rest of the way home.

Akiko's household consisted of her mother and father. She didn't have any siblings or even pets. She enjoyed being at home. She enjoyed being at school, too though. Actually, school might even be her favorite place. She loved learning. She loved studying, reading, and writing, too. If she just had friends to enjoy her time with…

"I'm home," she called, her small voice echoing through the house.

"Welcome back," her mother called from somewhere on the first floor.

Akiko took off her shoes and headed up to her room. From her window, she could see the light gray rain clouds slowly drifting through the sky. She felt like a cloud sometimes. When she was out in public, she often felt like a cloud drifting through the sky, watching the people that passed below her but with them hardly ever looking up and seeing her.