milliways_bar | (no subject)

She wasn't the only one who'd gotten up early and grumbled at the dawn. After a good (magically enhanced) rest, Zenigata had decide to maybe not jog while it looked like it was going to storm, and instead took to resting on the inside.

Still, idle hands are the devil's tools and Zenigata is righteous in his pursuit of justice! So he can't just sit on his thumbs forever. He just... doesn't know what to do with himself, sometimes, especially with the ringing in his ears still going.

So he walks. Maybe it's not the best idea to walk around the grounds when you can't hear shit, but he still has perfectly good eyes, right? It'll be fine.

He's carrying his shoes on the sand of the warmer part of the grounds, dressed in jorts and a t-shirt with no shame, still radiating Big Dad Energy. So, when he spies Sunshine soaking up the rays, he waves and calls her name.

It's louder than necessary, but she already knows he can't hear well, so who'll mind?

Sunshine sits up, looking over as she hears her name being yelled. Smiling, she waves back.

"Hey you!" she calls back. "How are you feeling?"

Why yes, that's a minor hearing test.

Zenigata approaches, and doesn't answer, because he still can't hear shit.

"Good day!" he says instead, because you always give a friendly greeting to the lady that made your raw meat ankle into something like new again. "Sorry, but I'm still mostly hearing ringing. Sorry! Should have brought my notepad."

Sunshine grins, shaking her head and making a dismissive 'nah, no worries' gesture. "Would you want me to take care of that?" she offers, with a gesture to herself, to her ear, and to him.

Zenigata sits down, cross legged, next to her, before he nods.

"If you're asking for what i think you are, yes, you can try! I suppose it can't hurt..." But then he turns a critical eye to her, looking for lasting injury or a sign of pain or weariness. "Are you feeling alright, thought?"

She grins, nodding. Even if her sleep was alcohol-assisted, it was better than most sleep she has had, and there is something about her posture and manner in the blazing summer sun that speaks of a kind of ease and relaxation she doesn't carry when encountered indoors. "Feeling fine."

She pulls her feet up to move to her knees, scooting over so she might get close enough to see to his ears.

Easily flustered, Zenigata keeps his eyes averted politely as he dips a little to drop his head for easier reach as he sits seiza in the sands. He'll just be good while she works.

She isn't shy, for all that he is fully dressed and she is in her bathing suit, and the grand majority of her scars can be seen. She hasn't blushed out of embarrassment since she was sixteen, and she has been working on not being self-conscious about her scars for the last few years.

Her scarred hands touch his ears - trying not to be gentle but not tickle - and she closes her eyes.

The effect is less spectacular in full daylight than it is by night. The sun is there, immediate, providing the blazing, bone-melting heat of summer upon her skin as Rae's power extends from her hands into the damaged cochlea of his inner ears. Nerve-damage, hair-cell damage, inflammation surrounding the eardrum itself, are each soothed and eased away by the warmth extending from her hands.

There's a little giggle because it does tickle, but the heat of that energy. His eyelashes, so very long, flutter on his cheeks. It just feels so nice. Comforting.

"It's like being back on the beaches of Zanizibar," he says out of nowhere. "The heat of it, relaxing on a beach surrounded by foreign seas when I was a young man. I didn't expect it to feel like that."

The waves becoming clearer, over the ring that's fading away, like he just realized he'd pressed a conch to his ear. But no, it's just the lap of the water against the Caribbean inlet.

It is only a relatively small area in which she is working, which means focus is required, and the work is delicate. "Mm," she muses, in a voice becoming clearer as the healing progresses. "I don't know Zanzibar, but it sounds amazing. What brought you there - work?"

Zenigata wasn't aware he'd been talking. He just turned bashful, eyes down again.

"Can you believe I ran away and joined the coast guard?" he asks in a small voice. Nobody ever asks about the Zenigata before Lupin, like the person who Zenigata is now sprang fully formed out of one of Lupin's early thefts. But he has history of his own.

Sunshine smiles, her own eyes mostly shut as she focuses on erasing any lingering damage in his ears. "Hmm, you? Yeah, I can see a young Zenigata doing something like that."

"Any reason why you chose the Coast Guard?"

"Because I would be far from Chiyoda - ah, that's where I was raised. We've got an estate -- still around, too. My Dad had us in Saitama for a while due to his work - he was a division chief up there - but I wanted out of Tokyo." Zenigata explains, scratching the back of his neck.

"Coast would take me to some place where there was water, and that wasn't home, I hoped," Zenigata said, before he added, "I wanted to see outside Chiyoda, not just-- slide into the beat cop job I knew I could get without effort. Kanda-Myojin's a great place, but... I didn't want to be the next Zenigata on our old turf."

Then he smiles and adds, "I can hear you clearly now, Sunshine-chan. What you've done is amazing."