Challenge [TohmaXNanami fanfic]

[Timewitch]

Challenge [TohmaXNanami fanfic]

Warnings: The fanfic may contain spoilers for those who watch the English version. By the way, I've watched only the Japanese version of this season, so I use the Japanese names. The fic is rated T just to be on the safe side.

Disclaimer: I don't own Digimon.



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1. In charge

Nanami skimmed through the videogame designs she had made. As soon as she made sure they were perfect as always, she tidied them on her desk and allowed herself to lay off a little.

When she had begun with that job, she had done so for the money. She had expected to find it boring or even to hate it, but she didn't. Sure, it wasn't the most challenging thing for a genius, but to her surprise, she actually enjoyed it.

Due to the fact that she had been a Digimon, she was the only person in the whole company who could understand how it felt to fight, and, what's more, how it felt to win an actual battle. And that feeling she was trying to transmit to the customers whenever she designed a videogame.

Thanks to her intellect, her attempts had been successful, leading her to rise quite quickly in the chain of command. She had become the vice-chairwoman of the company, and since the managing director was old and tired, most responsibilities fell upon her shoulders.

In fact, that very day, the chairman had gone off to some business, leaving her in charge. In charge... she liked the sound of it... she didn't have to bear with all the fools; she could just tell them to shut up.

Actually, things had begun to improve ever since she got her current position; she'd been allowed to choose a secretary among her former colleagues, and she'd chosen Mikan, who, according to Nanami, was the least idiotic. And things would get even better when she got the position of the old man... it was just a matter of time, she knew it was.

The phone rang, interrupting her thoughts. She picked it up. It was her secretary, Mikan.

"Hello, Hakumei-sama..." Mikan said. She sounded hesitant.

"Tell me, Mikan," Nanami said impatiently. Why doesn't she say straight what the matter is instead of wasting my time?

"They're asking for the managing director and since he isn't here I thought I should put them through to you..." said Mikan.

"Who are they?" Nanami asked.

Mikan's voice trailed even more. "It's some guy from that medical constitution that claims that our products are extra-dangerous... they aren't, right?"

Nanami snorted. "Put him through to me," she said, too annoyed to answer Mikan's question. I can't understand their way of thinking. We're just giving them more patients, which means more money. Why don't they just leave us alone?

"Aye," said Mikan.

Nanami held on and before long she heard a male voice coming from the other side of the line.

"Hello... Am I speaking to the managing director of EdgeGames?"

"No, he's not here at the moment, but I am the second in command. You may tell me what you wished to tell him... I've been told about the constitution you represent. By the way, it would be good if you let me know who I'm speaking to," Nanami said, trying to sound as polite and sweet as possible.

"My name is Tohma Norstein. You may have heard of me," he said, a little too modestly for someone who had won the Nobel Prize.

Nanami froze, her fingers grasping the earphone so tightly that the joints had gone white, as the memories began to flood her mind.


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Author notes: This is my first ever romance-oriented fanfic, so it probably sucks... The surname I gave Nanami, Hakumei, means twilight (I found the translation in an English-Japanese online dictionary). I think it suits Nanami well.

I started to write this fic mainly because I needed something to get me out of my writer's block with Digimon 5 squared... and partly because I like Tonami and I can't seem to find such a fic anywhere. I'm not sure whether I'll continue it or not. Anyways, reviews and criticism are welcome, flames are useless.

 

[Timewitch]

2. A brief argument

Tohma Norstein. The sound of the name echoed in Nanami’s ears, bringing back old memories. She recalled all the feelings she’d experienced because of him. The curiosity at finding out someone of the same race as her. The insane, well-hidden excitement of the moments she’d tried to fascinate and corrupt him. The anger and the denial when he’d slapped her hand away, as if she was some mischievous child. The obscure humiliation and guilt she’d tried to hide by fighting against him…

Tohma coughed. “Hm, Madam, are you still there?” he asked.

“Yes. Excuse my silence… I was… recalling what your name reminds me of,” said Nanami, lying without lying, unsure whether she should reveal her identity or not.

“I see. Well, as you’ve obviously been told, I have called because-” Tohma said before Nanami interrupted him.

“Tohma-kun… it’s me, Nanami” she said, glad that she had made a decision.

“Nanami-san?” she heard him gasp. He made a small pause. “Sorry, now I was the one who stopped talking… oh, my, this is… unbelievable!”

“It is,” she admitted. It’s better to regret doing something than not doing it, she thought, attempting to justify the words she’d said a few moments ago.

They both stayed silent for a couple of moments, seeming to have forgotten why Tohma had called in the first place.

Nanami tried to get back to her senses. “So… what exactly is the problem with my company?” she asked.

“Let me get straight to the subject,” Tohma said confidently, as he got back to a subject he knew how to handle. “The materials you use for the videogames are cancerous. You must stop using them. You may replace them, or you may stop producing those games completely; I don’t know what you’ll do, but you’d better do it quickly”.

“That’s something I have to discuss with my superordinates,” said Nanami.

“You should. Moreover, there are cases of people who’ve needed psychological support due to being addicted to your videogames. Many such cases have been reported, and we cannot ignore that”.

Nanami smiled at hearing him sounding so business-like and impersonal. She’d bet that he’d practiced those words many times before attempting to call her company. “That’s something that is often said about products of many videogame companies. Why are you specifically calling ours?” she asked.

“Didn’t you listen to what I’ve just said? Some of your customers have needed to see a doctor in order to overcome their addiction to those videogames of yours!” Tohma said furiously; he wasn’t speaking calmly and collectedly anymore.

“Always a defender of justice, huh?” Nanami teased him to make him angrier.

“Nanami, that’s not some mind game! It’s about people’s health, for crying out loud!”

“And what are you planning to do about it?” Nanami asked.

“I don’t think we can discuss this on the phone…” said Tohma.

“Wonderful. Why don’t you drop by my office for a coffee?” Nanami suggested casually, smiling slyly. Of course, that’s more than an invitation for a coffee… it’s an invitation to a kind of battle, she thought.

She heard him taking deep breaths. “I will. Is it okay if I come at around 4 pm?” said Tohma.

“Sure. Do you know the company’s address?”

“I know how to find it. See you” Tohma said and hung up.

Nanami put the earpiece back to its place, smiling triumphantly. She was glad she’d already got him angry, and more than glad for getting a chance to meet him once again.

- -

Tohma chastised himself for agreeing to see Nanami, yet he knew he couldn’t have done otherwise. The issue with the videogames was serious and, as far as he knew, there wasn’t any other person in the constitution that could possibly handle Nanami.

He’d dealed with her once, and successfully… but this time he didn’t have his Digimon partner anymore. Things would be much easier if Gaomon was still there; Gaomon would snap at Nanami if she mocked them too much, Gaomon would remind him he should do his duty, Gaomon would bring him back to his senses if she tempted him too much…

As memories from their last battle popped in his mind, he tried and failed to block them; he couldn’t help recalling her flawless face, her smooth, seductive voice, her perfect body that at certain moments wasn’t covered enough…

No, he tried to stop his thoughts. Nanami had been killing Digimon because she was bored; she found it amusing to kill. She was a genious, so why didn’t she try to earn money without causing harm? Because she didn’t care, and probably because she liked causing harm, Tohma thought angrily. Yes, good. Anger. A nasty feeling, yet one he could deal with.

 

[Timewitch]

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 for the tasks of the next day and she 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”.