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.org/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.