Chapter Text
Kunikida Doppo is born the 30th august during a terribly warm day. He's a healthy baby, with golden hair and with very good lungs, as the nurses soon find out. They wince, but his mother laughs and craddles him in her arms.
There is no man beside her, but the sun shines gently on them.
Kunikida is a serious boy. He grows up loved by his mother, but his lack of father grants him a lot of strange and pitying, sometimes even disgusted looks. It would be a lie to say that he doesn't care, but frankly, his mother is enough. Together, they sing and dance under the shining sun.
The second he knows how to hold a pen, he draws until his hand hurt. He draws and plays instruments and sings without ever learning how to. It is almost unnatural.
His mother smiles sadly.
On his birthday, his mother gifts him a strange golden knife. When she sees his confused face, she hums softly and ruffles his hair.
“Just in case.” she says, and doesn't elaborate.
He frowns, but takes it.
Kunikida is smart, but that doesn't mean he is without problems.
He is a child without a father -bastard son, the children whisper without understanding its meaning, they just listen to what their parents say- and has ADHD and dyslexia. His teachers aren't really helping, and consider him more trouble than he's worth.
His mother rages, and ends up teaching him. She is a better teacher than the ones he had, and he takes a liking to mathematics and poetry because of her.
His dyslexia is still a problem, but he is stubborn. He will not let this fact dictate his life.
He is seven when a monster kills his mother.
By then, he already suspected that something was off with him. It was the sun maybe, this bright light that never seemed to burn him no matter how long he stayed under it. Or maybe it's the words, the lyrics and how easily they came to him.
So when he comes home one day to find a snake-like monster playing with his mother's unconscious body, he is far more horrified than surprised.
He grabs the golden knife and stabs the monster in the neck. The snake dissolves, and he kneels in front of his mother, trying and failing to find the words.
His mother shushes him, her eternal smile still on her face despite the amount of blood she is slowly losing.
“Oh, my little sun, I wish we had more time.”
She is dying, but she uses her last strength to guide her son.
Kunikida Doppo runs away with a bag of food and water, his knife clenched in his fist and tears falling from his eyes.
He doesn't look back.
It takes a few months of living and hiding in the streets, but he finally manages to find a wandering satyre willing to bring him to Camp Half-Blood. By then, his eyes are cold and serious, almost desperate, and scars are carefully hidden behind his torn clothes.
He hasn't sang or drawn since almost a year.
Soon, he is in a plane heading to New York, and he can't help but feel empty, if only a little.
Camp Half-Blood is strange. Kunikida is not the only japanese demigod, which is a relief, but it feels foreign. He's safe, and doesn't need to be on guard, and he's not sure how to take it.
He arrives in the morning with the sun, and Chiron smiles at him. The centaur takes him aback, but he manages a small nod. It's not a smile, but it's something.
The day passes. He's good with bows, better with drawing and writing and atrocious at gardening. He still doesn't smile, but he's not tense anymore.
The dinner comes, and suddenly a bright light appears above him. Chiron and the others demigods kneel, and he almost freaks out until the centaur speaks.
“Hail, Doppo Kunikida, Son of the Sun God!”
Will Solace, almost twenty years old and his older brother, walks up to him with a warm smile and holds out his hand. Slowly, Kunikida takes it, and smiles back.
He comes back to Japan, because he wants to have a life outside of this world of monsters and gods. His siblings agree, even though Will frowns slightly and gives him his phone number and a warm hug.
“Just in case.” he explains, hands in hands with his boyfriend, “Don't hesitate to send us an Iris Message. I'll be in Italy with Nico, but we'll come if you need us.”
“It'd be a good trip.” the son of Hades says, before adding : “Try not to die.”
Will elbows him hard, but Kunikida nods and almost smiles.
The monsters come for him, of course.
He fights and fights and studies mathematics and poetry despite his dyslexia. His knife is always tucked under his jacket, and when he can get away with it, his bow is carefully hidden in a guitar's box.
I will live. He thinks as he stabs a monster with a snake tongue -snakes are always hungry for Apollo's offsprings- multiples times in the heart after it interrupted his revisions. I refuse to let my blood dictate my life.
During his thirteenth birthday, he finds a notebook on his bed. There's a note with it, a writing too delicate to be that of a human's.
Happy Birthday.
He smiles an cries a little.
He is fifteen when his ability manifests.
Ironically, it's not because of a monster or of any greeks creatures. It's a normal boring day in high school, and a man is trying to rob him.
He's yelling, which attracts curious and worried looks from passers-by. It's obvious that the man is drunk, and he's holding a knife in such a sloppy and unpracticed way that it makes Kunikida cringe, unimpressed.
The student is holding his notebook, and he writes almost mechanically in it, waiting for the cops to show up. Maybe it's because of his terrible fighting stance, but Kunikida finds himself writing about how terrible it is and how he should be holding his knife in one hand instead of two.
The word ナイフ (knife) is barely finished before it starts to glow. Incredulous, he watches his words come to life as the small knife falls on his lap.
The robber freezes, before an expression of pure terror appears on his face. He turns and runs away, screaming.
“An ability user!”
Kunikida blinks.
A what?
An ability user, Chiron explains after Kunikida called him panicked, is someone with a special power possessed by no one else.
“Like half-bloods?” Will asks, brows furrowed, but Chiron shakes his head.
“No, ability users are completely mortals. Actually, I don't think there are any demigods with abilities. You may be the first one, Doppo.”
You say that like it's a good thing. He thinks but doesn't say. Instead, he sighs and goes back to his revisions.
The following summer, Will and Nico come to help him with his new-found power. The two men are married now, and are ones of the oldest half-bloods in the world at twenty-six and twenty-seven.
His brother-in-law asks once during dinner.
“Do you have any idea for a name?”
Kunikida pauses, and thinks of his mother and how her voice reciting poems made him feel so special and loved.
“Lone Poet.” he says, and the others demigods smile.
He's eighteen when he meets Fukuzawa Yukichi and Edogawa Ranpo.
He's in college and works as a cram school tutor for maths, working part-time on the weekends. He has a small apartment in Yokohama. Monsters still come after him, but when compared to the once-a-week monster from when he was fourteen, the once-a-month that comes to eat him is easy to manage.
He's leaving his class when he sees the man watching him. His first thought is Monster, and he grips the pocket hiding his knife. His notebook is tucked under his arm, and when a fellow classmate points the man he lets it fall in his hand.
Just in case.
He's reluctant to approach this stranger, but the choice is taken from him when a boy a few years older than him jumps in front of him with a carefree smile.
“So you're the mysterious ability user!”
Kunikida blinks, taken aback.
“What?”
It turns out that they are not monsters but others ability users, like him. Apparently they're a lot in Yokohama, the town that attracts them. Kunikida wonders if this is why monsters avoid this place : he's been a lot less attacked since he moved here.
They want him to join the Armed Detective Agency.
“Let me think about it.” he finally says, because while he is interested he's also suspicious -he hasn't ruled out the possibility of them being monsters- and only eighteen.
He calls Will and explains the situation.
“I heard about them.” Nico says, thoughtful “Especially of Fukuzawa. A lot of ghosts are in Hell thanks to him.”
“How reassuring.” Will sighs, worried about his little brother. The rainbow makes it a pretty funny image, but Kunikida is too used to it to laugh.
“Well, he hasn't killed in a while, so I think you're good. Still, if things get out of hand, call us and I'll use Shadow Travel to get you out.”
“But not too much, don't get tired.” Kunikida frowns.
Nico groans and mumbles something about Apollo's children and healers while his husband laughs and ruffles his husband's hair.
Fukuzawa offers to teach him martial arts, and he accepts.
It's the first time he's beaten by a normal human, and he's in awe, at least that's what Ranpo says.
Monsters come less and less, and now Kunikida is almost certain there's something about this town that keeps them away like in Camp Half-Blood. It's a good thing, because explaining why he randomly disappears when he sees a monster so that he can kill it away was getting harder.
He officially joins once he's twenty and drops out of college. There's a party, and when he comes home Nico and Will are waiting for him.
“Be careful.” his older brother says as Nico searches something in his fridge.
“Aren't you supposed to be in Italy?” Kunikida says, resigned.
“Well, we couldn't not celebrate you getting your first job!”
Will's eyes are full of mirth. Kunikida sighs, but lets a smile appear on his face.
The sun is bright the next day.