It was a strange sensation, being free to do whatever she wanted. Hana was about as far from being a soldier as you could get but she still had something in common with the members of her country's military. Regimen. Wake up at a certain time every morning, eat breakfast, cardio exercise, shower then to her computer for morning practice. Eat lunch then it was time for reviewing matches and talking strategy with the coaches before moving on to a second practice session. Eat dinner, then watch some shows or a movie before heading to bed only to repeat it the following day and the one after that. It was rather mindless in a way, living life by the clock each and every day but it was a routine she had long since become accustomed to over the last few years.
But now that routine was over. There was no alarm clock going off in the morning, no meals with the coaches, no practice or any of the routine she could have sleepwalked through. Now she had nothing but time to do anything she wanted... except that she genuinely didn't have the slightest idea what to actually do with all the time now available to her. In the end the sheer abundance of choice had been almost paralyzing and she had done nothing but marathon TV shows and movies for the last week. She still made sure to practice the exercises that Lucio had shown her as the days rolled by however.
Inevitably though the time of her next appointment drew closer and Hana faced the misfortune of having to put on a pair of pants before emerging from her cave of an apartment. The receptionist waved her through with a smile and Hana was back in the same room as before while waiting for the Brazilian transplant.
A couple of minutes later and he had arrived, shutting the door behind him. Lucio was wearing a black polo shirt this time but it looked like he was wearing the same pair of baggy khaki's or an identical pair at the very least. There was a small cardboard box in his hands but he set it aside before looking at her. "Sooo... I wanted to ask you about what you said last week. What even was that supposed to be? Were you hitting on me? Cause I'm your therapist and that's just..."
"Just what? Too much awesome for you to handle?" Hana flexed a bicep at him, the fact that she didn't have much muscle there to begin with making it rather less than intimidating.
"I was going to say weird but I honestly don't know. I'm not a doctor you know but the whole doctor-client thing kinda still applies to me."
That caught Hana's attention and she furrowed her brow at him. "Wait you're not a doctor? Then what are you doing in here? Why didn't I get a doctor assigned to me? What kind of place is this!?" She finished with a shout that people across the hall could probably hear.
Lucio put his hands up, palms out towards Hana as he tried to ward off the sudden burst of anger. "You were. Sorta. The doc looked at your file when it was sent to us and he wrote down what he thought the problems might be then gave it to me. All the stuff I did last week was his idea. He's the brains, I'm just one of the people here who helps gets stuff done."
"Do you have any medical training or are you just some random guy they hired off the street?" Hana was still peeved but there was a certain... earnestness to his explanation making it difficult to be mad at him.
"My minor is in physical therapy. I'm not smart enough to be a doctor but I know enough to be an assistant which means I can help you with your hands and shoulders."
"So does that make you my knight in shining armor?" Hana batted her eyes and pretended to swoon. "Heal my body oh sir knight!"
A silence only surpassed by the cold vacuum of space filled the room as Lucio blinked at her several times before covering his face with his hands. "Oh my god. Please stop, you're killing me over here."
"Too much?" asked Hana.
"Way too much." Lucio lowered his hands and shuddered at the unspeakably vile scene he had just beheld. "Look, I don't mind if you tease me or flirt a little but please, please, please don't ham it up so much all right?"
"Okay, I'll lay off a bit mister dark and handsome."
"Dark? Because I'm... wait no isn't the saying tall dark and handsome? You forgot the first word." pointed out Lucio.
"I don't know if I can call you tall though since we're pretty much the same height. How tall are you?"
"...one hundred and sixty centimeters."
Hana grinned in triumph. "Hah! I'm a hundred and sixty four which makes you the short one!"
"You win, you win. I'm the short, dark and handsome one I guess." Lucio headed for the shelf to grab a pair of green rubber dumbbells and held them out to Hana. "So each of these weigh a kilogram. It's not much but we're going to be starting light. I want you to hold your arms straight out to your sides with one in each hand for as long as you can."
Hana started to reach out for the weights but a light bulb went off in her head and she undid the zipper on the jacket she was wearing, taking it off before they got started. As she set it aside the fact that her elbows were plainly visible to Lucio dawned on her... but he didn't say anything though he clearly must have noticed.
After that it was one exercise after the other, alternating between working on her wrists and shoulders. Nothing strenuous but Lucio wasn't giving her much downtime between them and he seemed determined to keep her focused on what they were doing. Once Lucio had decided they had done enough Hana started to head for the massage table but Lucio stopped her short. "Hang on, I forgot something."
Lucio headed back over to that box he had been carrying when he had first walked in and picked it up. "So these are for you." Inside was a pair of what looked like a fingerless glove made of cloth and velcro straps. "Wearing these while you sleep is supposed to help take pressure off your median nerve so... I guess make sure these fit."
Hana took one of the splints and slid her hand into it before fastening the straps so that it was snug against her skin. "Looks like a pretty good fit." She hesitated for a few seconds before forcing an unfamiliar word out. "Thanks Lucio."
"No problem." He patted the massage table twice with one hand. "Let's get started."
She undid the splint, setting it back in the box on the ground and clambered up onto the table, lying face down. A pair of hands descended onto the center of her back, the palms pressing themselves flat against the tanktop she was wearing. The heels of his hands pushed downwards into her skin as they glided up then back down to the small of her back and steadily spread outwards towards her arms on each side. Once Lucio reached her sides he let up on the pressure but kept his hands on her as he returned his hands back to her spine then up towards her neck.
Hana curled her toes as those fingers started squeezing and pressing into the flesh all about her collarbone. "Oooh, that feels really good. You didn't do that last time."
"Well I had a feeling you wouldn't mind. I don't feel comfortable massaging your thighs but right here is a really good spot and it's close enough to your shoulders that it probably still kinda helps." explained Lucio as he continued working his thumbs along the base of her neck.
"Oh I'm sure, you just wanted to get your hands on me again didn't you?" teased Hana, though she certainly wasn't complaining about what he was doing to her.
Lucio glanced around the room for a moment then towards the door which was still shut before answering. "I probably shouldn't be admitting this but yeah, being able to give a beautiful woman a massage is definitely a nice perk." He snuck a peek down at his pants but thankfully there wasn't a tent there.
"You know I actually have a question for you Hana. I know you practice a lot but do you ever coach people at all?" asked Lucio, his fingers keeping to the same pace as he spoke.
"At Starcraft? Not really... I go over my own games with the coaches. Sometimes they ask me to help analyze a teammate's game or replay but that's not very common. Why do you ask?"
"Wellllllll." began Lucio. "I actually play Starcraft a little myself. It's fun but I've been trying to get into silver for a couple of seasons and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I don't expect you to say yes but I figured I'd ask if you might watch me play a game or two and give me some tips."
Trying to get into silver. That meant he was in bronze, the lowest rank of people who played the game. Bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, master, grandmaster and then the professional scene. She was technically still the top ranked player in the world and he was all the way down at the bottom. The chasm between them was so vast that her immediate reaction was to say no but then those fingers hit just the right spot. "Ohhhh I get it, that's why you're massaging my neck. You're trying to butter me up. Well it's working! Go get a piece of paper, I'll give you my address. Bring your computer by and I'll give you some advice. You just gotta promise to keep giving me massages like these. And one more thing. Do. Not. Tell. Anyone. About. This."
A knock came from the door to Hana's apartment and she hurried over to unlock it but not without checking the peephole first. Lucio was standing on the other side with what looked like a laptop bag underneath one arm. He was wearing the same pants as earlier that day but he had changed into a plain red tee shirt.
Hana undid the lock on the door and pulled it open. "Come on in." She shut the door behind Lucio and waved aimlessly at the counter. "There's some chips and stuff there if you want something to snack on. I got a table over there you can put your laptop on." Hana pulled on the fridge's handle. "Need anything to drink?"
"Sure." replied Lucio as he headed towards the table Hana had pointed out to him. Hana reached inside to grab a pair of sodas before shutting the fridge. At the same time Lucio was pulling his laptop out along with a wireless mouse similar to the one that Seo had inflicted upon Hana.
Her cheek twitched at the sight of Lucio's mouse. "Okay... I'd suggest buying a better mouse than that. And where's your mouse pad?"
Lucio pulled out a small cheap looking oval shaped pad with a raised gel mound at its base. "Right here and what's wrong with my mouse?"
"It's wireless." whispered a horrified Hana, the word itself tasting like poison as she uttered it. "You can buy a nice gaming mouse with a cord for forty thousand won. And what kind of pad are you using? That thing is tiny!"
"Yeah but it's ergonomic. I just turn my sensitivity up higher so it's not a problem."
Hana tried not to grind her teeth together as she sat down next to Lucio at the table. "Okay, here's your soda."
Lucio took it with one hand and popped the lid before setting it down next to his laptop. Hana looked at the now open soda then at the expensive electronic device next to it while chewing on her lip. As soon as Lucio started typing his password in she grabbed the can and slid it away from the the computer. "What's the wifi password?" asked Lucio.
"Kerrigan." Lucio typed the password in and a small window popped up telling them that he was connected to her wifi. A few seconds later and Lucio was going through the menu screen as he started setting a game up for himself. "Wait, what are you doing? You're playing against a bot? I thought you were gonna play a person."
"Do you want me to? I didn't think it would make a difference." He backed out of the menu and queued into a game. While they waited for an opponent to be found Hana got up and headed back to the kitchen to grab a bag of chips before returning.
By the time she sat down again the game was just beginning. Almost right off the bat she found something to nitpick. "That split wasn't very good."
"Split?"
"Yeah, sending your first workers to go mine. You sent them to the wrong patches. These four - " She pointed at the blue crystals on the screen. "mine faster than the one you clicked on. Too late now though. What build order are you using?" Lucio just blinked at her, not understanding. "Your build order! What strategy are you doing? Early rax into marine pressure? Sixteen CC? Early gas so you can get tanks out faster?"
"I'm not sure. I guess marines...?" he said, as if asking for permission.
"Well don't just stare at me! Build your rax, you got enough minerals for two already. And you need more SCV's. You want around sixteen SCV's on each mineral line and three per geyser ."
Lucio cringed as if she was hitting him or something and he turned back towards the computer, clicking on the control icons at the bottom of the screen instead of using hotkeys. Hana sighed inwardly as she tried to back up a bit. "Okay let me ask you something else? Why are you playing Terran? Do you like stutter stepping?"
"Stutter stepping? I don't know what that is. I play Terran because they got the best beats."
"What." Hana's voice was as flat as it could possibly be.
"It's the music. Protoss songs have this whole ethereal orchestral thing going on, it's sorta neat but kinda weird at the same time. Zerg got these cool drums going on but the rest of it always makes me uncomfortable for some reason. Plus all the units sound like they're puking and stuff which is gross. But Terran has these really sick guitar riffs, I never get tired of listening to them."
His mouse and pad were trash, he wasn't using hotkeys, he didn't know what a build order was, and he picked his race because of the music. Hana pressed her fingertips into her temple trying to ward off the headache that this lesson was giving her. "All right forget everything I mentioned earlier. That doesn't matter right now. Here's what I want you to do. Send an SCV here, here and here." She pointed at the three other player spawning locations on the mini-map.
"While you're doing that I want you to keep building units. Once you find the other player you attack. Don't even worry about micro, unit comp, timings or anything else. Just find your opponent then make units and 1A him until one of you loses."
"That doesn't seem like much of a strategy." pointed out Lucio.
"It's not, but you can't run until you can walk and right now you're barely crawling." said Dva, though as kindly as she was able to do given how this lesson had played out so far. "When you get better I can give you more constructive advice but for now just make units and attack."
Lucio started clicking on the screen again as he tried to follow her advice. As she watched her fingers itched to snatch the mouse away from him so she could do it herself. This wasn't the same as being able to play herself but coaching someone like this was the closest she could get to the team house environment she had so recently been evicted from.