I've been getting requests for a series of 8 fics and 8 fics in a modern day setting, so I thought I'd write a continuous story about his life in the present day. I hope you all like this~
The sun was dazzlingly bright for 10:30 in the morning. It was a lazy saturday in mid-August and it was obvious that it would be too hot to do a single thing.
Eight woke up with a groan, wondering just why he was awake this early in the morning when he had disabled his alarm clock the night before. Loud footsteps sounded across the top floor landing of the shared house.
Most shared houses in the area were full of university students who spent the days studying and the nights partying. None of them were particularly loud, thankfully, but Eight had a feeling they might've been scared away by their overbearing landlord.
He sat up, dark hair askew and eyelids aching.
He definitely wasn't feeling it today. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes a little too forcefully, before pushing himself up from the bed. He was determined not to get dressed today. He'd probably stay in bed a little longer, if his stomach wasn't currently doing the macarena from inside the confines of his body.
He almost broke the door from it's hinges. Out of all the rooms, his room had the dodgy door with the broken doorknob and the rusted hinged. He pried the door open, before slipping out onto the landing. The footsteps from earlier was probably somebody racing from downstairs.
He looked out across the landing, at the rows of doors the decorated the top floor. The top floor was built in a kind of 'U' shape, with the stairs leading downwards in the middle. His room was on the bottom right, between Six and Two.
Six and Two were but a few who lived in the shared house alongside him. Both were incredibly eccentric and perhaps maybe just a little bit crazy, in Eight's eyes, but they were perfectly nice people. Six was a student as well, at the local arts university. No doubt, his work was astounding, but his personality needed a little bit of work. Two was a mechanic and self-proclaimed inventor, who worked from home. Two was a lot older than Eight, but not old enough to be considered 'elderly'. He was probably the friendliest of the bunch.
On the left side were Five, Seven and Nine's rooms respectively. They were a bunch of students as well; Nine and Seven being undergraduates and Five being a senior. They were...alright, he guessed.
On the right side, next to Two, were the rooms of Three, Four and One. Three and Four were supervisors at their local library and One was their rather terrifying landlord.
It was a strange place to live. He didn't feel like he fit in here, but there was nowhere else to go at this point. He clunked downstairs, feeling more than a little bit exhausted.
Eight, despite being the same age as Nine, Seven and Six, didn't attend university. He didn't believe he was smart enough to attend, plus he didn't have the funds to pay out going to uni. Besides that, he didn't feel he needed to. He, like Two, also worked from home, as a weapon-smith. Sure, the term was outdated, but anything else sounded pretentious. He spent his time crafting replica weapons for places like schools, museums and other education places, but also made weapons for hunting as well. He liked what he did. He wouldn't change that.
Downstairs, there were three people sat at the breakfast bar. The stairs led down into a hallway, opposite the front door. In the first room, was a kitchen, which then extended into a living room. That living room was connected to a dining room next door. The door at the end led out into the garden, where both a shed and a laundry room stood. People were generally instructed to cook their own meals and do their own laundry, but they all functioned like one big family. Two, when he wasn't busy inventing, took it upon himself to do the houses laundry. He had more than enough free time to do a few chores, providing they didn't involve backbreaking work. That job was usually reserved for Eight and, even if it were chores, he still enjoyed doing them. He felt redundant, otherwise.
Sat at the long, marble counter, were Six, Five and Nine. As soon as Eight stepped into the room, their heads turned.
"Morning, Eight." Nine grinned. "You look flattering." He joked, and Eight gave a lazy smile. "Funny, that. The image I was aiming for was 'Nine hurrying to finish five essays at three in the morning, with only two cans of Red Bull and half a ham sandwich'." His hands outlined an imaginary photograph.
Nine snorted. "You literally described my night, last night." He said, lowly, and Eight laughed, heading towards the kitchen counter and rummaging through the cupboards. "I heard you typing on your keyboard. You were so loud last night, I seriously thought One was going to come out and yell at you." He snickered, and Nine burst out into laughter.
Nine was an undergraduate at the local university, studying archaeology. He was totally average in appearance, with light brown hair, dark eyes and average height. Despite how generic he looked, he was loved by (almost) all.
Five, who was sat beside Nine, chuckled lightly. Despite the few years age difference between the two, Nine and Five were the best of friends. Five was studying medical science, in the hopes of becoming a surgeon. He was sweet natured and shy. He looked rather similar to Nine, with the light brown hair, tied up in a small ponytail and dark eyes.
Well...eye.
The most obvious thing about Five was his lack of a right eye. He had a bandage, which winded around his head and over his eye socket, obscuring it's view. Eight was always secretly curious what it looked like underneath, and Five had assured him on multiple occasions that it wasn't a pretty sight. "It kind of looks like...the mouth of a lamprey eel." Five had told him, with a sheepish smile. Eight stared blankly. Not knowing what a lamprey eel was, none of what he said meant a single thing to him. He still wanted to see.
Beside Five, sat Six, who apparently hadn't even been listening to the conversation. He was hunched over his bowl of cereal, staring ominously at the pieces of cereal floating around in it. Six didn't only have an eccentric personality, but an eccentric appearance as well. He had ink black curly hair, that cascaded around his face, framing it perfectly to make him look absolutely adorable. He had dark circles under his eyes that looked suspiciously like smudges of ink, but Eight couldn't be sure.
Even stranger, Six not only wore his striped pyjamas everywhere he went, but he possessed a condition called heterochromia. It meant one eye was a different colour to the other. It was true; one eye was incredibly dark in colour, almost blue, while the other was a pale lilac. It was natural, obviously, but nothing about Six was even remotely natural.
He also had a key, attached to a chain, hanging around his neck. He never explained what it was for, or why he had it.
Eight managed to procure a box of cereal from the cupboard next to the fridge. He didn't bother pouring it into a bowl. There wasn't much left anyway; he'd probably eat the last of it. He stepped gingerly across the cold, wood floor and leant over the counter, opposite his housemates.
"What's happening today?" He asked, shoving a handful of cereal into his mouth. Nine shrugged, looking over to Five for an answer. Five, with spoon in mouth, paused, looking thoughtful.
"I need some clothes, so I'll head out in a bit to go shopping. You coming with, Six?" He asked the smaller artist. Six shook his head without hesitation. "I'm busy..." He said, through a mouthful of warm milk. Five looked backed over to Nine, who shrugged. "I'll come with."
"Where's Seven?" Eight questioned, looking around the room. Nine pushed forward his own plate, before answering. "She's at the gym. I don't get how she can go and work out so early...Just thinking about it is making me queasy." Nine put a hand on his stomach and groaned. A laugh was shared by the small group.
They were interrupted by the sharp sound of footsteps. It sounded like the kind of footsteps a lady would make if she were wearing heels. Through the door, stepped their landlord. A cold aura set over the room.
"Five, if you're going out, I need to you-...Eight, are you eating cereal from the box?"
This was One. Their stubborn, bad-tempered landlord. He had jet black hair, tied back into a thin ponytail, despite being around the same age as Two. His face showed age, but his expression was always steely. What was with people here not looking their age?
Eight swallowed, nervously. One hated things like these. He held out the box and the cereal inside rustled. "There ain't much left, so I was gonna have the rest of it." He explained, around his mouthful of cereal. One visibly winced, before sighing.
"I was going to ask you to pick up more bleach...," One spoke to Five, "...but you might as well get some more cereal while you're out as well." He said, and Five nodded obediently, and One left.
An odd silence spread throughout the room, and suddenly, Eight didn't feel hungry. He set the box down, and smoothed his hair down. He, himself, had white hair, which spiked up on one side, while the other was shaved. He had a long scar that stretched from his forehead to his chin. It wasn't prominent, like most scars, but it was still there. It gave him an intimidating appearance, which was good around 80% of the time.
He watched Five set his bowl in the sink and leave, with Nine following close behind. Six pushed his bowl away and suddenly left, not bothering to clean up behind himself. Eight sighed, taking his bowl and emptying it in the sink, before heading back up to his own room.
He spent a good half an hour sprawled on his bed, not doing a thing.
He liked his life here and he didn't want to move out anytime soon. The nice thing was that it seemed nobody was in a rush to move out either. He was pretty sure that Two had been lodging her for quite a while now, and he didn't look like he had anywhere else to go either. It was a relatable feeling for Eight.
But he couldn't help but feel alone.
As a child, he'd never fitted in well. He was big and bulky, even at a young age, and most kids found him to be a little too intimidating, so making friends was the hardest thing in the word for him. He looked like the kind of guy who would always have something to say, but that assumption could not be more incorrect. He found trouble talking to new people, or people in general, and often found himself fearing rejection.
He felt stupid in that way, but the people he'd met here had welcomed him with open arms. He didn't feel like a weirdo or a misfit, but he still had the lingering feeling that he didn't belong here. He couldn't think of an actual place he'd fit in that included other people and he found himself feeling more and more lonely.
He sat up. It was too early in the morning to be feeling like this. He couldn't be dealing with this right now. He got up and stretched.
He had chores to do.