Chapter Text
The story is inspired by “I’m preying on you tonight, Hunt you down, Eat you Alive” by calico_star. A beautifully written, Damian Wayne centric story.
https://archiveofourown.to/chapters/106262025#children
-Past-
Hakuba is a vampire, it took him quite a while to find the exact label for his ‘type’ of vampirism. He had to use his grandfather's machines to do quite a bit of testing and researching. It took a while for him to learn that he is most similar to a White Winged Flying Fox AKA a fruit bat, only the vampire version of it. As a fruit bat, they're nearly extinct. Although he has no way of truly knowing if there are actually other vampires out there like him. As far as he's aware, the only vampires he managed to find some clues of are the generic ones often told in fairy tales. Bloodsucking creatures who only come out at night.
It took him months, nearly an entire year to pinpoint the exact moment he became a vampire. Knowing he had to find that out considering no other family member shared his supernatural status.
Based on what he learned, he had been turned as a newborn by a starving, desperate vampire who had snuck into the hospital to steal blood. It took years of dealing with his parents constantly taking him to see doctors for his overly sensitive skin, being told that he has an extreme case of eczema. Years of practically starving but not starving to death due to his once a human nature giving him a little tolerance for human foods and drinks. Years of tantrums follow, becoming easily overwhelmed by sounds, scents, and bright colors. Years where he remained underweight, considered malnourished and dehydrated to the point of the local authority's social services department having to step in on various occasions.
When he was old enough to realize that something was wrong with him, and not in a medical sense, he was desperate for answers.
Desperate enough to confide in his grandfather. The only one that he could bring himself to trust enough to explain everything about the way he feels and the thirst that he's had to deal with for as long as he could remember. He doesn't remember the exact details of what happened, only that in the end at around 8-years-old his grandfather became his main guardian with his parents remaining married yet living away from one another. His father maintained his career as an officer in Japan while his mother remained in England working with a part of his grandfather's company. Although it was a section of the company that his grandmother oversaw. Regardless, he lived with his grandparents instead of his parents for years, and didn't see them at all. The only form of contact he had with his parents over the years was phone calls that never seemed to last as long as he used to want them to.
His grandfather helped him become homeschooled, and his grandmother oversaw his education herself. They both made sure to reach him all he needed to know and more.
They even went out of their way to learn how to help him control his heightened senses once they learned just how strong his hearing and sense of smell was. He had 20/20 vision, perfectly average for a human, it was at night that his vision seemed to become extraordinary. At night, he had to be careful with just how much he stared at anything containing light because of how it would cause his headaches to flare back up.
Becoming known by the public and Scotland Yard especially as The Night Detective was an accident.
Because while he was forever grateful to his grandparents for all that they've done for him, they had a habit after homeschooling him; a habit of refusing to let him go outside even in their own yard. He's always been a curious child, being able to read so many mysteries on top of various other books from his grandfather's library wasn't enough to keep him entertained. At first, he was too scared to sneak out considering he knew just how dangerous it could be going out on his own. However, the older he got, the more his self control continued to slip up until he found himself outside past midnight without realizing it.
Every night he would venture further out, exploring more things without having to worry too much about being seen. It helped that he could hear well enough to be able to tell when anyone was coming near him. It gave him more than enough time to hide.
Sadly, it also meant he could hear people committing crimes, and others calling for help.
He couldn't just ignore it, it never occurred to him that he could just pretend he didn't hear anything.
-Present-
Hakuba needed to wake up early enough to apply sunscreen and wait for it to dry and reapply it. On top of having to get ready for the day despite having his sleep schedule messed with. It's not that he couldn't go out in the sun without burning to a crisp or turning to ash, that's not something he had experienced before. He did have a habit though of getting sunburned quite easily. Now that he was going to attend a public school, and high school at that, he needed to stop sleeping in and only getting up once it's dark enough to not have to worry about getting seen.
He made sure that his father's housekeeper knew of his dietary preferences for when she did the grocery shopping. There should be plenty of fruits in the house for him to make a smoothie, and cut up some of them for his lunch.
Ekoda High School… he's more nervous than expected. After attending the Adam's Smile painting heist, he was able to get a feel for the team members of the KID Task Force as well as the elusive Phantom Thief himself. However as a result of moving to Japan and even moving into his father's house, one of the agreed upon requirements was that he would attend high school. His father explicitly stated that he was to be on his best behavior, and all but fled from the house after personally giving him a tour around. It's not that he's worried about any of the school workload, he's perfectly confident in his ability to keep up with his studies.
It's more so he's not sure how to act around other people, let alone other teenagers.
Chapter Text
-Present-
Were teenagers meant to be so loud?
The moment he stepped foot onto school grounds he could hear people whispering about him; only the barrage of noise that greeted him was more like yells than whispers. It didn't matter that he had come to find ways of tuning out noises over the years. With how often he was mentioned, and how more voices seemed to join the gossiping mill as he walked to his first class of the day, Hakuba couldn't block any of it out.
He should have expected this. Of course everyone would be curious about him, even the staff members who had been made well aware of his presence here were talking about him.
He should have pushed harder to get his father to agree to let him stay with homeschooling, or to even get the chance to test out of high school. However he insisted that Hakuba at least try to have something normal for the next few years he'd be here living with him. To be fair, it wasn't as though he initially planned to move in with his father. He had more than enough savings to be able to afford his own place however it was hard to do that when he found out that it wasn't a legal transfer of guardianship that led to him being in his grandparents custody. Apparently it was all just some sort of verbal agreement his family came to years ago. Hakuba was still his mother and father's kid in all senses of the word. That includes having them as his guardians and needing parental permission for quite a few things.
That included being allowed to be homeschooled and living by himself.
Technically he at least got one of those things. His father was usually out of the house before Hakuba woke up at ‘normal hours’ and never sought him out anytime they happened to be home at the same moment. In a way, he was living by himself. Other than Baaya coming over three days a week to clean around the house, meal prep, and check in on him. Hakuba glanced at the student showing him to class, he's almost certain they introduced themselves to him and yet he hadn't been able to hear it. It'd be considered rude to ask now after they've been walking around the school for nearly ten minutes. Perhaps he'd be able to ask one of the staff members in the office, or if he's in his class then listen when the teacher does roll call.
“Okay, so this is your class. Most students are already here by this time but I'm pretty sure your teacher didn't start just yet.”
Ah. So that means he isn't in class with Hakuba, a shame. He seemed to be perfectly civil and helpful, plus he didn't seem to be put off by Hakuba's poor social cues.
He's aware enough of his downfalls, and sadly that does include quite a bit involving social interactions.
.
.
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Everyone keeps staring at him, it's like they're not even taking in his introduction, just staring.
At least Konno-san, the class teacher, seems to be nice.
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.
Hakuba didn't realize how often he'd have to interact with people today. It's as if every chance they get, someone keeps trying to talk to him. The girls keep commenting on his appearance, and so do a few guys, although they're muttering it under their breath. A lot of his classmates keep asking him for his name and where he's from despite him already saying it in his introduction. Were none of them paying attention? Not only that, but at this point it was as though they'd given up all pretenses of being subtle with their comments regarding him. Was a foreign transfer student really something that interesting to talk about?
At least he was able to recognize the Inspectors daughter, they certainly behaved and looked similar enough.
.
.
.
There was a KID fanatic in his class, someone who certainly didn't seem too happy that Hakuba was there. Interestingly enough, he also seemed to be friends with the Inspector’s daughter.
He was familiar to him, but Hakuba couldn't quite place where he'd seen him before.
Although judging by his teachers' reaction, Kuroba-kun's behavior seems to be the usual for him.
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Hakuba may or may not have rushed out of school as soon as the bell rang. It wasn't too bad, he didn't think that it'd be outside of his tolerance to keep attending his classes. The only issue was just how much everyone else tried to talk to him. That, and how there seemed to be a few students throughout the school that kept following him around. It was bad enough that he had hidden from them up on the roof as soon as he could. The door should've been locked, but the lock the school seemed to be using was quite old. All he did was push the door open and the lock broke.
-Past-
Hakuba knew better than to do something like this out in the open, especially in a place he's never been before. However, he has to admit he is curious. The way KID managed to escape tonight was both frustrating and intriguing. It would've helped if the Task Force members and himself were able to work together better than they had, but that's something he'll need to work on. It took Scotland Yard a while to take him seriously and to let him help out with cases. It didn't help that he certainly couldn't write about how his supernatural abilities were able to help him in the reports. It's why he's always needed to be careful with his hearing, his sight, his strength, and shifting to follow suspects.
Shifting in Japan was breaking a rule he set for himself.
However, the urge to try and follow KID to wherever his hideout may be was too strong. It's why he shifted as soon as KID managed to escape with Adam's Smile. He couldn't fly for long, the near gale force winds nearly sent him tumbling head over heels into a tree. That and it was absolutely freezing.