Author note: I'm really, REALLY sorry, guys! I haven't updated for like 2 months… I tried to make this chapter longer in order to make it up. I'm lousy at updating. I'll do all I can to update a lot during vacation, but I can't promise anything… I'm not good at doing as I say.

At no one3: I'm really really sorry for not updating when promised.

At nyc2dragon: I hadn't originally thought of Relena appearing in the fic, but it's a very good idea. I'll consider it.

At all who have reviewed so far: Thank you for putting up with me!

- -

- -

3. A ridiculous pair of glasses

"Make sure to have ordered some coffee by 4 p.m.; we'll have a visitor," Nanami told Mikan.

"Ok, madam," said Mikan, writing it down on her notebook to make sure she wouldn't forget.

"Oh, now that I thought of it… Order some green tea too, just to be on the safe side". He's a doctor; he probably disposes of caffeine… thought Nanami.

"Sure," Mikan made another note on her note book. Then, she raised her head. "Would you like anything else, Hakumei-sama?"

"No, you may go, Mikan," said Nanami.

Mikan nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

Nanami laid back on her chair and allowed herself to brainstorm a little about the last time she'd heard about Tohma. It was when she was attending college, about four years before.

-flashback-

"Hey, girls! You need to see this!" shouted one of Nanami's classmates, Jasmine, showing a magazine to the others.

About a dozen of girls gathered around Jasmine, all of them trying to read the magazine at the same time.

Nanami stared at them with a slight, sly smile on her lips. Just out of curiosity, she decided to take a look at the magazine too. It's probably some stupid gossip about some lame singer who actually can't sing… she thought, trying to make her way to Jasmine. When she saw the headline and the picture below it though, her heart stopped.

The picture featured a blond, bespectacled young man dressed in a cerulean suit. Next to him there was standing a blond girl who was wearing a silken dress. Both of them were surrounded by reporters and cameramen.

"19year old genius wins Nobel in Medicine!" Jasmine read aloud the headline. Then, she proceeded to the article. "Professor Tohma H. Norstein, son of the distinguished Austrian Norstein family, graduated from the Stockholm Royal University of Science when he was 12 years old. Since then, he had been trying to find a cure for his sister's illness and he finally succeeded. Thank heavens, the blondie is his sister! I was afraid she was his girlfriend!" Jasmine squeaked, interrupting her reading of the article.

Why does this make me feel relieved? Nanami wondered, but pushed the thought away. She wouldn't be caught dead admitting that she had been sharing Jasmine's "fear"!

"Yes, as if there are any chances you'd meet him. This guy is a genius, highborn and if I'm reading well he used to be an Olympian boxing champion too!" Sonomi, another of Nanami's classmates, replied to Jasmine.

Jasmine waved her hand scornfully at Sonomi and continued reading. "His success led into his winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine at the age of 19, becoming the youngest in history to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine. 'I'm very honored to receive this prize,' he says. 'May it restore hope to many people who shared the same illness as my sister'. His sister Relena now enjoys the best of health and of course she's very grateful to her brother and very proud of him".

"Gah, this guy seems too good to be true," said another girl, Keiko.

Jasmine examined the picture more carefully than before. "Hmm, not really. Actually, those ridiculous glasses make him look like a complete geek".

Nanami, who had been observing all the silly chattering of her classmates, decided to say a seemingly random sentence, just to see her classmates' reaction. "Actually, he looks way cuter without the glasses," she said.

Her classmates stopped talking, surprised by the new voice joining the conversation.

"How have you seen him without his glasses?" asked Keiko.

"Tell me you know him, Nanami-chan!" said Jasmine said pleadingly.

"Don't be silly, Jas, she can't possibly know him!" said Sonomi. "Nanami, you don't know him, do you?"

"Not really; I just guessed he'd look better if he wasn't wearing those ridiculous glasses," Nanami said ambiguously, getting up from her seat. Then, she walked a little too fast out of the classroom, leaving the other girls wondering whether she really new the young Nobelist or not.

-end of flashback-

When she finished daydreaming, Nanami took a look at her watch. It was three o'clock. She'd finished the tasks she had to do for that day, but she couldn't just sit around for the rest of the day; not only would she be bored, but her subordinates would start talking about her if she didn't seem to work as much as they did. Therefore, she took a look at the tasks of the next day and started working on them.

-

-

Tohma walked nervously into the reception room. He pressed slightly his glasses on between his eyebrows. When he had first put on his glasses he found them annoying, but since contact lenses made him feel even more uncomfortable, he got used to wearing glasses. Since then, they gave him a feeling of being protected, so pushing them closer to his eyes was a way to feel safer.

"Excuse me sir… Are you Mr Tohma Norstein?" one of the secretaries asked him.

He recognized the voice. She was probably the secretary he had spoken to the same morning, before talking to Nanami.

"Yes. I have an appointment with Nanami…" he paused. He didn't even know her surname.

"Nanami Hakumei-san is waiting for you. Just give me a moment to check if you can go to her," said the secretary picking up the earpiece in front of her. "Hakumei-sama, Tohma Norstein has arrived… ok, I'll tell him. Yes, I have ordered both," she said and put the earpiece back to its place. "I'll lead you to her office," she said getting up.

Tohma followed her, too nervous to even bother to answer, repeating mentally the worlds he would tell Nanami.

After one corridor, six floors and another two corridors, the secretary knocked on a door.

"Come in!" he heard a familiar voice coming from inside.

His heart started to leap and he took deep breaths. I have to be calm. I have to do what I came for, he thought. I can't let her company produce any more of these videogames…

"Hello, Tohma-kun!" Nanami said smiling at him, not even bothering to say a word to the secretary.

"I'm going to my office, Hakumei-sama," said the secretary uneasily.

Nanami's face instantly became serious. "OK, Mikan-san," she said. Her face remained sort of tense for the few moments that followed until Mikan closed the door behind her. Then she smiled, though not as widely as before.

Tohma forced a polite yet a little too slight smile. "Hello, Nanami-san," he said. Then, despite himself, he started to stare at her. She had grown a little taller and her burgundy pumps added some height as well. She was wearing a knee-long black, wavy skirt, a white, lacy shirt and a grey coat. Her long, yellow-blond hair was tied in a ponytail with a big, dark pink bowknot. "You look great…" a compliment escaped his lips, which he regretted the next moment.

"I know," Nanami smiled. "Thank you. You don't look bad either". Despite those words, she did think he looked bad. He had grown quite a bit taller, which was good, and he was still thin, but as far as she could tell he wasn't in such good shape as he used to be. His dark blue suit, despite its matching his eyes, added to the fact that he looked way too serious for Nanami's taste. And on top of that, his glasses, which looked almost identical to the ones he was wearing in the newspaper picture she'd seen four years before. Nanami would bet they were the same pair. I'll have to fix a few things on you, Tohma-kun… she thought.

Her gaze made Tohma uneasy. "Why are you staring at me?" he asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just marveling at you," she said, failing to hold a giggle. "Why don't you have a seat?" she said sitting on her chair, her desk becoming a border between her and Tohma.

Tohma sat on a chair and placed a briefcase on Nanami's desk. "Open it" he ordered, pushing it at Nanami's direction.

"I will," said Nanami, putting the briefcase aside. "But I need some coffee first. Would you like to drink some coffee too?"

"No, thanks. I prefer to steer clear of caffeine," Tohma said tensely.

I knew it! I knew it! thought Nanami. "What about some green tea?"

"I'm allergic to green tea".

Darn it! Darn it! Darn it! How can anyone be allergic to green tea? Nanami thought, frustrated that her guess hadn't been completely correct. "Okay" she said, although it didn't feel okay to her at all. She picked the earphone of the phone on her desk. "Hey, Mikan, it's Nanami. You may bring that coffee, and bring two glasses of water too," she said and put the earphone back to its place.

"Did you just ask her to walk all this way from the reception room just so that she would bring the drinks?" Tohma asked, frowning.

"No, her office is next door. When you were about to arrive, I had sent her to the reception room so that she would bring you here. Did you think I could be that cruel?" said Nanami.

"I've seen you acting even crueler than that, Nanami," said Tohma. "Should I remind you?"

Nanami was about to answer, but a knock on the door made her change her mind. "Do you see how quickly she arrived? I told you her office is next door" she said, getting up to open the door.

Mikan walked in the room, holding a disk with a coffeepot, two cups and two glasses of water on it.

Nanami wondered for a moment whether she should take the disk from Mikan to show Tohma that she wasn't "cruel", but the next moment she felt embarrassed at the thought. Instead, she decided to let Mikan put the disk on the desk, but not to let her pour the coffee.

"You can go, Mikan," she said as soon as she had placed the disk on the desk.

Mikan nodded, smiled and left.

This time, Nanami didn't sit on the chair behind her desk, but on the guest chair next to Tohma's. "Oh, she brought two cups for the coffee… she must have assumed that you would drink coffee too… nevermind" said Nanami, pouring some coffee to her cup. She took a sip, which she swallowed unwillingly. "Darn it! This isn't coffee; it's hot chocolate!" she said angrily.

"Oh, good, I can drink too then," Tohma said quickly, hoping to calm her down. "To tell you the truth, I'm not allergic to green tea. I just didn't want to drink anything at that moment… but chocolate will do just fine," he said.

"You… you…" Nanami muttered and then laughed.

Tohma poured some chocolate to the other cup; he wasn't very careful though, so a drop or two blurred his glasses.

Instinctively, Nanami reached for Tohma's glasses, taking them off and putting them on the desk.

Tohma blinked. "Hey, give them back! I can't see a thing without them!"

Nanami had intended to clean them with a tissue and give them back, but an impulsion got the better of her. "You look so much better without them," she whispered, placing her hand on his cheek. His skin felt soft and warm under her cold fingers.

The gesture brought to Tohma's mind the memory of the other time she'd done that, but at that time her hand had been gloved. The feel of her bare hand on his cheek made his cheeks flush. It feels good… a little voice said inside his mind before he could hush it.

Nanami saw his cheeks reddening and felt his skin becoming warmer, and that gave her a sudden, strange enthusiasm, which grew stronger as Tohma closed his eyes and, for a very vague moment, despite himself, he smiled.

The very next moment though, he pushed away her hand gently, but quickly. "I need my glasses," he said.

At least this time he didn't slap my hand, Nanami thought, grabbing a tissue from the tissue box on her office. Then, she cleaned the glasses and gave them back to Tohma with a snap movement. All the enthusiasm she had felt moments ago had just been shattered into pieces.

Tohma, after putting on his glasses again, reached for the briefcase and handed it to Nanami. He gave her a scornful glance and then he started to stare at the wall at his left.

So, we're finally getting down to business, Nanami thought. She opened the briefcase half-heartedly and then browsed quickly through the papers in it, her mood becoming worse and worse with each paper she glanced at. Most were chemical reports or psychological reports. "I guess I don't need to ask what these are about…" she said.

"They are a small sample of the evidence we have collected", Tohma said, looking at her again. "You have a one-month's notice to withdraw your products from the market. If you don't make it on time, we'll sue your company. If you bribe the judges to win the trials, we'll publish articles based on our evidence. We are well-respected and we can harm your reputation seriously".

"I see," said Nanami, frowning. "I'll inform my subordinates… and we'll consider our next move".

"You'd better consider it carefully," said Tohma.

Nanami closed the briefcase and dropped it on her desk. "Why are you doing this? What good will it do to you? More patients mean more money to you doctors!"

"If we cared only about money we wouldn't have become doctors in the first place. It's a very energy-consuming job and you can't do it unless you care for people. We want money, of course we do. But there always are enough patients anyway! We don't need your videogames adding more to them!" Tohma said and snorted. "Do you realize how immoral your way of thinking is? Well, of course, what else could I expect from you? I saw you killing innocent creatures for fun! Why should you care to use your wit to earn money without making people sick?"

"Why should I care for others? If I don't look after myself, who will?" said Nanami.

Tohma sneered again. "Continue thinking like that and no one will ever, ever care about you," he said.

You will care about me, thought Nanami. "You may leave. I'll call you when my company has decided what to do".

"Sure. May I take this? I'll give it back to you," he said, taking a videogame sample from Nanami's desk.

"Take it and examine it as much as you want," Nanami said narrowing her eyes.

"Thank you. By the way, you can either keep the briefcase or destroy it. The papers in it are copies of the original. Talk to you soon, Nanami-san," said Tohma, getting up and stretching his hand out towards Nanami.

She shook it. "Talk to you soon, Tohma Norstein".

- -

- -

Author note: I hope the length of the chapter will make up for the long time it took to update!