One of these days, I am going to go back and seriously revamp those first few chapters because I don't like how some of them turned out.

Drip.

Drip, drip, drop.

Water.

Drip, drip, drop.

What is water?

Water.

A transparent, tasteless, odorless, and colorless substance. It has no shape. It takes on the form of whatever container it's held in. If you spill water on the floor, it won't form into the shape of a cup, it'll be flat like the ground.

I suppose that it is an appropriate title.

Drip, drip, drop.

Water Woman

Juvia awoke that morning to sounds of a clucking roaster echoing out of her phone. Slowly gaining awareness through her senses, the first thing she noticed as she writhed from under her turquoise comforters was the sunlight peaking in from behind her blinds. After searching hazily under her pillow, she shut the alarm off on her phone. She sprung upwards and made her way out of bed.

After taking a quick shower, Juvia started to get dressed.

Opening her closet door, she then had the conundrum of deciding what to wear. She didn't take too long to decide however. She sprung rather quickly for a long pair of dark blue trousers, along with a white button up shirt with the school emblem sewn onto the front pocket.

The next order of business was hair.

Juvia's blue tresses hung in a messy loop around her shoulders, because of how badly she slept on them.

Looking in the bathroom mirror while she brushed her teeth, she lazily considered the prospect of a ponytail by bunching her hair together with her palm. She spit the paste out of her mouth, deciding it was best to stick to what she normally did.

The trousers she wore were actually three sizes too big for her, so she made sure every morning that she had a belt that was long enough to keep the baggy clothing banded to her.

After she buttoned up her school shirt, she went in her closet and pulled out a navy-blue vest and slipped it on over her shirt. The vest was far from fitting on her, just like the pants, but she liked it that way.

After she was done with her clothes, she walked back into the bathroom mirror and pulled out all her blue curled hair that was tucked underneath her vest. She took a navy-blue tam and tucked all of her hair into it as she put it on. There wasn't a single strand left out to betray the fact that Juvia had any hair at all underneath her headwear.

Looking at her appearance in the mirror and seemingly satisfied, the girl exited the room and entered the kitchen.

She poured herself a bowl of cereal at the desolate kitchen table and slowly began to eat. As she chewed, she checked the digital clock that hung on the wall. It was 6:45am.

Right on time.

Juvia liked to arrive to school at 7am when the gates are first opened, that way, no one saw her when she walked into the building and to her class.

As expected, only the senior mistress who was in charge of inspecting students' uniforms as they walked through, and the security officer who had just unlocked the gates for her, had arrived.

"Good morning Juvia." The woman said pleasantly.

"Morning." Came her short reply and she didn't stop to look at either woman.

She walked into the main building and headed for the second floor where her homeroom was. She was so early, the janitor was still there mopping up some classrooms.

The man mopping up the room she wanted to get into, hailed her and gave her permission to go in.

She nodded and proceeded to the very back of the classroom to the far left; the darkest and most desolate corner of the room. She rested her head down to nap while she waited for registration period but before she did that, she checked the time. It was 7:00am.

Perfect.

Juvia liked being the first one to arrive to school and liked being one of the last persons to leave. She did this, so that she wouldn't draw attention to the fact that she wore the boys' school uniform even though she was a girl.

She rested her head on her desk and let her eyelids drift to a close.

She was startled back to consciousness a while later with a crashing sound. It was almost registration time and some of the students had already entered the classroom now waiting on the homeroom teacher to arrive.

Juvia then did what Juvia always does best around this time: observe.

To a corner in the back right, one not as dark and desolated as Juvia's was, were Corey, Cameron and the twins; the gamers and fantasy enthusiasts. As usual, the four boys were arguing about something that happened the evening before in a four-way game play.

Back to the left side of the classroom, a little ways in front of her, were Julia Walters and her two of her closest girlfriends. They were the epitome of femininity in the classroom.

All around her, there were of course other straggler classmates who seemed normal and kept to themselves, but Juvia didn't feel the need to identify them because she couldn't file them into a specific category.

In the center of the classroom, a boy with light brown hair, glistening green eyes and in general, an easily excitable face, (in Juvia's opinion) stood on his chair, one foot on the seat and the other on the head of the chair. Doing this made the chair tilt back and forth on its two hind legs dangerously until finally the chair fell over completely on its back, causing a very loud and alarming slam. The boy shouted in exhilaration which made Juvia flinch and annoyed her to no end. Thankfully, she wasn't the only one who was annoyed by the boy's antics.

The majority of her classmates jumped at the sound of the slam, but since most of them were watching him already, they largely ignored it, laughed, or brushed it off as his signature brand of brashness.

One person Juvia observed, who was particularly annoyed, was the boy with the spiky pink hair who sat in the front row to the very left end by the window.

He lifted his head from being propped by his chin when he heard the sound and blanched the hardest when the chair slammed against the tile. He looked like he wanted to hurt the boy for his annoying antics but settled for rolling his pencil irately in his left and right hands instead. This boy, Juvia noted, was the notorious alleged delinquent.

Seated next to him, was a girl who was new to the school.

She had soft, feminine, and motherly tendencies towards him, which in this case, was her nervously saying uttering in an attempt to calm him down.

Juvia wasn't exactly sure where she was categorized as yet, but Juvia knew was a surefire "blonde" and had a very pretty face. In addition, she already seemed pretty popular amongst the boys. Although she wasn't exactly hanging out with the "in-crowd", Juvia decided for now that she was probably just another one of those "in-girls".

The boy who had slammed the chair onto the ground shouted in exhilaration. Seated behind him, a blonde boy with glasses chuckled dryly.

"That's not how you chair surf Brady." The boy said with half amusement on his features. A moment later, a big grin plastered all over his face as he jumped up on his own chair.

"This, is how you chair surf!"

Soon enough, the two idiots were both wobbling dangerously on their chairs shouting like wild animals let out of a zoo.

Nobody said anything for a long while as they were all either too preoccupied with their own conversations to say something, or just didn't care.

Juvia wondered how they could all tolerate this for so long.

Then, the door swung open and a familiar voice rang out.

"Loke! Brady! Get down from there!"

Another male voice, mature and exasperated sounded off too.

"Are you two serious right now? Lisanna and I could freaking hear you all the way down the halls! Come on you guys, at some point you've got to get tired of acting like a bunch of children 24/7."

Juvia gave a little snort.

Entering the classroom now were Lisanna Strauss and Gray Fullbuster, tenth grade royalty, and now, a power couple. Lisanna, for her extroverted and socialite tendencies which allowed her to befriend the majority of students at school, and Gray Fullbuster, for basically being a pretty boy who plays soccer and doesn't know how to treat others- especially girls.

Juvia honestly didn't care for anyone in her homeroom too much, but nobody in the entire tenth grade disgusted her more than the boys from the soccer team.

The first bell rang and in walked the homeroom teacher, Mrs. Knowles.

"Good morning 10c." She said graciously. People were still very much engaged in their own conversations and her greeting went mostly unnoticed.

She then slammed her hands on the desk and nearly hoisted herself over the teacher's desk. "I SAID GOODMORNING!" She shouted.

Everyone, including Juvia, perked up and paid full attention to her, hearts racing in fear. A very small, fearful, collective mumble of a good morning was heard from the students. Mrs. Knowles backed off gracefully from the desk and smiled sweetly at everyone.

"Thank you." She said in the sweetest voice ever.

The whole class stared uneasily at her as she happily started searching in her purse for something. When she noticed the uncanny silence she looked back up at the class. "What?"

Nobody said anything and she shrugged and went back to her purse. At this point they, were all convinced she was crazy, but perhaps, with a class like this an equally crazy homeroom teacher was necessary.

Roll call was taken and when the teacher got to Juvia's name, the blunette didn't answer but merely raised her hand and waited for the teacher to look up to see her and mark her present – as always.

When registration was over, the class gathered their belongings and headed for the door. As Juvia made her way to pick up her bag, a boy bumped into her causing her to stumble onto the ground and knocking the books out of her backpack before she was able to zip it up properly. He looked back at Juvia in passing and mumbled a half apology as he continued on his way to first period.

She proceeded to clean up the mess that she didn't cause, and watched as the class cleared out almost instantaneously.

The Next Day

The rooster on her phone crowed promptly at dawn and Juvia was up with ease.

Boy uniform, vest and tam were all properly adorned.

She ate toast and deviled eggs that were boiled the day before for breakfast. A note was on the counter next to the eggs.

'Hey Juvia! Sorry again I missed dinner last night! I know you said it was fine, but I wanted to make you breakfast regardless. Sorry I didn't have time for something elaborate! Have fun today, okay? -B'

Juvia stared blankly at the note for a while, reading it carefully. When she was done, she continued about her morning routine.

Hopping off the bus, and walking down the big stretch that lead to the school, it was 7:02. Still on time.

She hailed the homeroom janitor as she walked into the classroom. She looked over history notes as she waited for registration.

Homeroom members started trickling around the time they normally did. The really noisy ones started coming in shortly after.

Roll call.

Classes.

End of day.

And the day after that.

Juvia arose naturally. She checked her phone underneath her pillow, she was fifteen minutes ahead of her alarm. She started getting ready early.

'Here's some leftover lasagna from our dinner last night if you want to take some for lunch! – Brenda', Today's note read.

During registration that morning, there seemed to be a common theme of discussion amongst all the different groups of students. They were all buzzing about some party that was going to be held at someone's house. From the sounds of it, it was invite only so it seemed like one of those 'in-crowd' parties.

Except, Juvia noticed that it wasn't just an 'in-crowd' party. The gamer boys were all arguing about how they were going to get there, and the girly girls were talking to the other quiet kids about it in class. The airhead jocks were of course yelling their feelings of excitement, instead of using their normal voices like normal people, and even the delinquent and his 'in-crowd' female companion were discussing it.

Everyone it seemed, was invited, except for her.

But of course, Juvia was just a background character. Why would she ever be invited? She was only an extra in somebody else's epic high school tale. Everyone continued to talk incessantly about the party. Everyone, except Juvia of course. And as usual, no one seemed to notice.

However, she played the role of the background character for so long, that this didn't really bother her. Plus, parties weren't exactly her scene. Anywhere, really. And lastly, anywhere where the soccer heads were at any point in time was definitely not a place that she wanted to be.

After role call, Juvia made her way over to the indoor pool for study period.

Sitting by the poolside without distractions was the closest thing in an inland town like this, where Juvia could get to the ocean. It was her guilty pleasure. She loved to just sit by the poolside and listen to the calming sounds of the rippling waters. Sometimes she'd sleep. Sometimes she'd write in her journal if something touched her spirit to do so.

When she entered the poolroom, the space was already occupied with a bunch of girls in swimsuits and goggles. Some were in the pool, doing laps, while others watched from the poolside.

Juvia walked in and ignored the alien stares the girls gave her as she walked to a safe and dry corner that wasn't in the way of the girls' practice.

After being seated, the sounds of a whistle and then splashing crashes the sound barrier as girls begin taking laps.

Juvia flung her backpack over to her front and opened it, taking out a black and white book and a pen. Her pen didn't even touch the page yet when she was startled to a halt.

"Lockser!"

The coach, an Amazonian like woman, with light blue hair that she liked to keep slicked back shouted at her. The girls all focused their attention at the oncoming confrontation.

The coach turned around. "I didn't tell you guys to stop doing laps did I?!" She blew the whistle furiously and longer. The girls quickly scrambled back to what they were doing, like weren't just trying to eavesdrop.

"Lockser, how many times do I have to keep telling you: not when I'm teaching a class."

Juvia, stared blankly at the towering intimidating woman's fierce eyes and said nothing. She said nothing for a long while, then focused her gaze back to her book and started flipping through it, looking for a blank page.

"Sorry."

The woman sighed in resignation at the girl's nonchalance, then turned back around to tend to her class.

Juvia let the sounds of the splashing water be her inspiration as she was once again in the mood to write. She closed her eyes and let it flow like music to her ears for a moment before opening them back up and clicking the top of her pen.

Before the pen could touch the paper properly, her flow of inspiration was abruptly halted at the sound of the pool doors opening up and the coach raising a ruckus yet again.

"Who are you? And why are you disrupting my class?!"

Juvia, with a twinge of irritation peaked her head out of her notebook to see who the coach had to fuss out for interrupting her class for the second time.

It was the person Juvia had least expected to see:

Lisanna Strauss.

"Uh, sorry, coach, I just was looking for somebody…" She trailed off, obviously nervous.

Her eyes wandered from the coach's furious blue green ones, to over the coach's shoulders, until they landed on the blunette herself.

"Juvia!" Lisanna cried.

Coach turned around to stare at the girl, who was sitting with her knees hugged to her chest, dumbfounded.

Juvia couldn't stop staring wide eyed at the girl. Her body went rigid when she heard the word come out of her mouth so casually. It had been so long since she had heard somebody at this school call her that.

Juvia transferred to Fairy Tail High in the ninth grade, but unlike her peers who all knew somebody from an old middle or elementary school, she came in not knowing anybody. From day one, she didn't want to draw attention to herself and never integrated with others because of it. Her foster mother (whose now her adopted mother) did her best to make her feel comfortable, and while Juvia appreciated the effort, but Brenda was an almost retirement-aged, overworked and underpaid, black, nurse, so she had her own problems to worry about. Juvia definitely didn't want to add to anymore those problems. Because of Brenda's occupation as a nurse for the biggest public hospital in Magnolia, she was never able to be at home for extended periods of time because they were constantly calling her in to work, however she always managed to find time in between shifts to eat dinners with Juvia before getting ready for her next shift.

Apart from that, Juvia basically lived in the house alone.

Juvia also had a thing, where she didn't want to wear revealing clothing.

During her first year at Fairy Tail, she always wore a big, baggy jacket to cover herself up in her girl's uniform and a hat to cover her hair. She knew it made her look strange, but she felt most comfortable in it and honestly didn't care what people had to say about it. She often felt detached from her current reality anyways. She felt the need to place people in mental files because she couldn't see people as people, but rather she saw them for what she could categorize them as.

When it came time for group work in her classes, she often found herself being paired up with people who tried to switch partners behind her back, or who asked the teacher to let them work solo as working with Juvia wasn't a feasible option for them. Juvia was weird, (and Juvia was well aware of that) but she wasn't necessarily sure what constituted the rumor that she was some sort of jinx on group assignments.

Of course, not all students were like this. There were some people who would come along and try to befriend her, but Juvia would intentionally scare them off.

Trying to befriend someone who obviously didn't want to be befriended felt disingenuous to her, not to mention a total waste of time. People were ridiculous to her in those ways.

Eventually, nastier rumors started to spread because of her bad attitude towards those who were friendly to her. People went from thinking she was strange, to detesting her for being an absolute bitch who apparently deserved to be hated.

She didn't make matters better for herself either. She continued to do the things that made people spread rumors about her, making those rumors seem true. She also had a habit of going to the poolside and sitting in the very corner of the room and watch the waters ripple. Sitting there, it was a safe space for Juvia. She felt calm. She always felt, tranquil and at peace by the poolside.

Back at her old hometown, Ridgeleaf, she would get away to the docks and stare at the ocean and its vast beauty whenever her life seemed to be too much for her.

It was where she felt the most human.

Of course, no one else around her saw it that way. As more and more people began to pick up on her habit of heading to the pool room instead of to class, or to the cafeteria to eat during lunch periods, people started to refer to her as the 'Water Woman'.

No one knew her real name to begin with, but before long, everyone knew her as 'the Water Woman'.

Between the lack of another presence at home and the hostile attitude towards her at school, Juvia oftentimes forgot what her own name sounded like. Who was she again?

She can't remember at what point it was, but she decided that she would change her manner of talking to third person, just so she had a way to constantly remind herself that she existed in the first place. Of what her name sounded like.

When she started dressing in the boys' uniform, the rumors around her became infinitely worse. Suddenly, Juvia went from being a snooty, stuck up bitch, to being a crossdresser. She even heard one that she was so grossly obese and ashamed of her body weight, that she had to wear the boy's uniform. That one actually made her laugh.

"Outside." Coach said and Juvia and Lisanna both found themselves exiting the poolroom.

Lisanna Strauss.

Tenth grader. Homeroom, 10c. She had short white hair, unmistakably bright blue eyes and a cute face. Her attitude can be described as quirky and chipper and she seemed to fit in well with people; especially boys. She was pretty popular on Instagram, but that was because the girl is horribly narcissistic and taking pictures of herself 24/7. A lot of the times with really fitted or sexy clothing.

She was in a lot of the ways, the exact opposite of Juvia.

Juvia took her as the spoiled princess type. Maybe that was the reason why Juvia didn't care for her too much.

The beautiful girl smiled, in Juvia's opinion, very falsely at her and started talking.

"Hey, sorry I got us both kicked out," She said looking at Juvia sheepishly. "It's just, I've been looking for you all day and… Well, I figured you'd be in here so…" Her eyes started wondering in every other direction as she scratched the back of her head. A very awkward silence followed Lisanna's attempt at seeming cute and sincere.

She chuckled dryly and a blush coated her cheeks as she continued. "Okay, right. So, I know this is probably a really fickle reason to seek you out during class, but I really wanted to invite you to a pool party we're hosting tomorrow!"

Juvia's left eye involuntarily twitched.

Another silence followed.

"I'm trying to make sure everyone in our homeroom is invited so we can all get to know each other outside of school, since, well, I feel like our homeroom is pretty divided right now. We have so many groups that only associate with themselves…"

How precious.

"And its said that the homeroom ranks that we're in by tenth grade are going to be the homerooms we're in until we graduate so, we might as well become acquainted with each other now, you know?"

"…"

"So, anyways... if you want directions to Cana's house, you can always find me in homeroom and I'll-"

"So why would I go?" Juvia's voice cut through whatever the girl was going to finish saying. Lisanna was startled. This was the first time Juvia had said anything all conversation long.

"H-huh?" Came out her confused stutter.

"This is the first time you've ever talked to me, and you and I have been in the same homeroom since ninth grade." Lisanna blanched, the frozen smile fading off her face.

Juvia's words cut straight through whatever amiable atmosphere Lisanna was trying to create between them.

"If you don't have anything else to say to me...." Juvia spoke monotonously, staring lifelessly at the girl in front of her. Fixing her backpack strap over her shoulder she turned and started to leave.

"Juvia." Juvia paused again at hearing her name being called. She still wasn't used to the feeling of being acknowledged as Juvia, especially not by someone as "in" as Lisanna. "I realized I probably seem like a shitty person for doing that to you all this time, but the truth is, I've always wanted to approach you. But I was always intimidated by you."

Silence.

"I actually loved how you would wear what you wanted to wear and not give a damn about what anyone else thought. I always wished I had that kind of courage!"

Juvia turned around and saw the melancholy look that was on the girl's face. She was surprised, to say the least.

"I always loved how you'd brave the halls like nothing was going on at school and ignore the haters and just lived your life how you wanted. Even though, people said you were mean, I always thought you were just misunderstood. I always thought I could make friends with you, its just… I kept putting the matter off as I never thought I could catch you at the right time. Eventually, I kept procrastinating with it, that all my time just flew by me, and I became wrapped up in other things."

Juvia let the silence carry the conversation for her.

"I never thought you were weird or strange. I actually think you're really pretty, and that you were confident in how you wanted to portray yourself, and that since you probably liked sitting by the pool a lot that at one point you were probably a kick ass swimmer!"

Juvia, who was now completely facing her, was, for the first time in a long time, moved by someone's words. She couldn't believe that there was someone out there that thought like this. Someone that might've tried to understand her instead of write her off and pass judgement.

Her poker face, which she usually wore on a daily basis was cracked blatantly in front of Lisanna, as she stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the girl in front of her.

Suddenly, she began to feel a little nervous. And, not that she focused on those sorts of things often, but Lisanna had also called her pretty.

She wasn't quite sure on what to say. No one had ever tried interacting with her like this before. She took a deep breath and twiddled with her fingers and stared at the floor.

Still, her feelings on the offer had not changed.

She shook her head.

"I still don't want to go. Sorry."

An obviously disappointed look fell upon Lisanna's pink lips and feminine features. "Awww, well that's too bad. I'm really going to miss you at the party!"

The words set off a swarm of butterflies into the blunette's stomach, another sensation that was horribly foreign to her.

"T-thanks." She stuttered. She was completely ill-prepared to deal with social situations like this.

Lisanna smiled and shook her head. "Hey, don't be." She then formed a mischievous grin on her face and winked one of her eyes with those really long eyelashes. With one hand on her hip and the other pointed at Juvia she continued. "This doesn't mean I'm giving up on you! I'll have you know that I can be incredibly stubborn. How do you think I got Gray to go out with me? Lisanna Strauss isn't a girl who takes 'no' for an answer." She finished up her statement with her arms crossed and mischievous smile still on her face.

Juvia still stared at her, dumbfounded.

"If you can't come to this one, I'll just take this as a raincheck for you to come to another function I have. 'Kay?"

Even though, this was a question, it didn't really feel like Lisanna was giving her much of a choice in the matter.

Juvia stared, still dumbstruck not saying anything.

Lisanna then excused herself and started heading to class with a chipper pep in her step like always, leaving Juvia, standing in front of the entrance to the indoor pool with her feelings muddled.

"My name…" She stated slowly. "is… Juvia…" It was strange, hearing that again. Her name was Juvia. Juvia Lockser.

After school that day, Juvia waited until it was about 5:00 and walked to the bus stop to catch the 5:30 bus to her street. As she walked, she couldn't stop replaying the scene from earlier that day in her head. For the first time, as Juvia walked the pathway to the bus stop, she noticed the people around her. The tons of cars stuck in 5:00 traffic, the smell of exhaust fumes, and the feeling of the cold autumn air as it blew icily, threatening to blow away her tam. She noticed how the trees, which now scarcely had orange and gold leaves, or just plain bare, lined the forestry that was separated from the road by the sidewalk. It was Friday today and kids were running carelessly about, playing a game of tag.

For the first time ever, Juvia was acknowledging the presence of something other than Brenda.

Why didn't she feel invisible anymore?

Was it because the conversation with Lisanna earlier made it feel like someone else other than Brenda was affirming her existence?

Was this why Juvia suddenly didn't feel so transparent anymore?

Drip.

Drip, drip, drop.

Water.

Drip, drip, drop.

Water.

A transparent, tasteless, odorless, and colorless substance…

That was essential for all living beings in order to survive.

Drip.

Drip, Drip, drop.

Perhaps the name was a fitting one, after all.

A/N: Plot twist, this was told all through Juvia's first person point of view, except, Juvia talks (or rather talked) in the third person. So guys, I'm trying to decide on weather my update schedule should be every Saturday, or every other Saturday... Additionally, I just want to say thank you, sincerely, to all the people who take the time out just to read my story, even if you don't favorite or follow, it really does mean a lot to me! Guys, I didn't even realize just how blessed I am to have so many eyes on my work! Thank you!

Special thanks goes to AzureFraust, and to the wonderful guest who keeps reviewing my recent chapters! I really appreciate it.

Until next time.

Next Chapter: We Like to Party!