You walk home. You have long since stopped taking advantage of your uncle's driver that picks up your cousins from the Academy, and actually, you really enjoy the quiet walk. Normally you change out of your school uniform to keep from being mugged on the way to the mansion, but today it was cold enough to wear a dress coat. Now you just look like any schoolgirl with higher end cloths.
The incident with Tamaki has drifted from your memory because of the frequency of the situation. You don't even grow warm from his "compliments" anymore. True, the first time last year when you had tripped over him you had daydreamed that he would actually be your prince. However, your cousins had made sure that you understood that you were't anything important to Tamaki: he complemented every girl. At first you were quite resistant against this, but when you had ran into him two more times and he said the exact thing as the first time, you accepted the fact that he was simply courteous to everyone, which really meant he didn't care about anyone. Yuko Menmonta was still invisible.
On the walked home you often wondered and pondered over making yourself visible, tangible. Over the weeks and months of your fifth-grade year, or, as the Japanese called it, elementary fifth-year, you struggled against the cold yet courteous shoulder everyone, including your uncle, had given you. You knew that your mother had eloped with an American soldier, leaving all of her family behind, but you never knew how much your mother's side of the family saw that as abandonment. When your parents had died, your uncle was the only one of your living relatives that "welcomed" you into his home. From the moment that you had unpacked your things in you new room, which really to you looked more like a living room, he had come in and told you exactly what he thought of your mothers actions. He told you that he would try to make your life easier after your trauma and give you every privilege of his own children, but you would do well to act like a reasonable human being. "Unlike your parents," was a subtext that you had sensed at the end of that speech.
Your uncle had told you the truth when he said that he would give you every opportunity, but it was always given with a sense of obligation, never love. He would praise his own daughters whenever he could but you had to ask for that same praise. For a few months your first year in middle school you tried to act out, to demand for love, but you soon found that they would treat you the same. Never a harsh word, but always out of obligation. So then you quite your outburst and instead in-bursted, drawing everything in and becoming silent. You soon found peace with your invisibility.
School was not any different from your so-called home. Shima and Mim, your cousins, had already told everyone about the black sheep of the family, imposing on their home and toys, and dividing their fathers attention. The children would treat you with tolerance because of their up-bringing. You made no friends.
Eventually to escape from the constant feeling you had of imposing, you asked your uncle to make you a small cottage with all the necessities of a home in the backyard of their grounds. He had complied without even a second thought. Now the right corner of the yard had it's own residence. The front door had a sign posted on the front reading "Yuko's Cave", and that was that. The cabin was practically an apartment -an expensive apartment. The floors were marble, and were carpet was needed it was plush. The living room had a cream colored fur love seat and a plasma T.V with gaming systems. The kitchen was full and looked like a smaller version of a designers kitchen, with a small glass table with two plush seats just on it's outskirts. There was a hallway that led to a master-bedroom, fully modern in décor, with an ill-used vanity in a section of the up-grade bathroom and walk-in closet. The room also contained a state of the art computer with three screens and a laptop for on-the-go reasons, as well as a large study desk with shelves of books on either side. The other side of the hallway contained your art studio, which was practically a large glass-walled room with marble flooring. The windows, of course, had large curtains that could completely block the sun out of the entire room if you so wished. The room was often scattered with art works of various mediums and had a work desk just as messy as the floor. This was the only room which showed any personality. The rest of the house was always properly clean, with a seemingly chalk outline for every item. The art room is the only room in which your conscious is expressed, and no one, ever, entered that room. Occasionally if you should have a kindly servant who actually cared somewhat for you over for a visit you would simply close all the curtains in your art room and lock the doors, then your mind would be cut off from the rest of the world, enshrouded in the comforts and safety of the dark.
On this particular day, when you walk into your house, you realize that there are several pairs of shoes in the cubby with "Shoes here, please" sign above it. And the door to your art studio was open with voices coming from it. Horrified, you run to protect your mind from invasion.