Akira's watched someone draw her blood once before, for curiosity's sake, and once was plenty enough times. She doesn't look. 

She does accept the stress ball and squeeze it, though.

Soon enough the vial is full and Takemi bandages up the draw site.

"All done."

She slots the vial into a small centrifuge on her desk, which starts spinning quickly. 

"Oh, cool! I've never seen a centrifuge in action before." 

Akira Kurusu has never read TVTropes, but even she knows everything's better with spinning.

Aaaaaaaaand then for a moment she needs to do nothing other than hold her head and wince as another shock of pain goes through her system. 

It's practically blinding and not at all pleasant. The headaches have only been getting worse lately.

Thaaaaat is concerning. Tae is concerned. 

"Are you okay?"

After a few more seconds the pain passes, gone as sharply as it arrived. 

"Migraine," she says when her breath has stilled again. "I started getting them a few months ago and they've been gradually getting worse. I usually have an attack or two a day now. They pass pretty quickly but while they're present I can barely even think through the pain."

Takemi frowns. "That's not good. It passes too quickly for painkiller to do much good, but we could try them anyway. Let's see what we can find out, though."

She does a few quick checks: pupil dilation, eye tracking, heart rate, among others.

"Hmm. It fits the symptoms a strong sudden-onset headache, but misses a few criteria for migraines. Strange. Does any of the pain linger afterward?"

"No, it seems to pass more or less completely. It still sucks - usually I feel pretty rattled after an episode - but it doesn't usually last long at all."

She shakes her head. "I don't like leaving you in this kind of pain, but this isn't an appropriate case for painkillers at all. By the time they've metabolized, the pain is long gone. Hmm. Maybe an extended release variant?" She plucks the vial from the centrifuge, slots it into a different machine, hits a button, then steps through the curtain back into her office. Pill-rattling sounds emerge.

Anything that could offer some relief is good news in her book.

She will wait patiently.

She comes back with three bottles of pills. She sets two on her desk, and hands the third to Akira with a paper cup of water. "Long-acting painkiller. Take one when you get up, and one twelve hours later. Doesn't need to be with food. Take one right now, start the normal routine tomorrow."

And then she turns to her computer to look at hormone test results.

"Thank you, seriously."

She takes it.

She nods at the computer. "Okay, Akira. I'm prescribing you estradiol and spironolactone. The former should be dissolved under your tongue, hold it there until it's all gone, while the latter should be swallowed. Take them on the same schedule as your painkillers: one each, twice daily. The closer you get to exactly twelve hours between each dose, the better."

She hands her the other two bottles.

"Thank you so much." She accepts the bottles.

"Glad to help, Akira-chan. Any other questions for now?"

"No, I don't think so. You've been a huge help. How much do I owe you?"

She digs in her pack for her wallet.

She checks the number on the system, then discounts it a bit and names that price instead.

Despite having to get a third prescription, Akira should still have plenty of money to get a basic wardrobe for her off days.

Things are really looking up. 

She pays, puts the medication in her pack, and heads out from the clinic. She has a secondhand store to get to. 

... Does she remember where the secondhand store was, or is she going to have to go back to LeBlanc to ask Sakura-san?

Conveniently, it's visible as soon as she emerges from the side street Dr. Takemi's clinic is on.

Then she will go there directly!

She's smiling to herself. She got to meet a real life trans person!

She did! A real life trans woman who is now a beautiful doctor in a tiny neighborhood clinic.

The store has an eclectic selection of skirts and blouses at low prices, along with a sparse selection of essentials like underwear and shampoo and toothpaste new.

It is actually weirder for her as she appears now to avoid the women's section. 

It is still so, so, so hard to actually go. Her smile vanishes. Somewhere in her hindbrain she expects someone to yell "pervert" at her. 

She... browses. There really are a lot of skirts and blouses here. It feels like she shouldn't touch them, like she's unclean somehow.

Very eventually she picks out some things that look... pretty basic and safe. And that fit her, obviously. She can check against the sizing of her gym clothes if she has to. 

There's a floor-length maxi skirt for sale. Just one. It has a pattern of green leaves on a black background. She covets it. 

She lays her hands on it. Is it her size? 

She's in luck. it is.

And it's not going to break her budget either?

No, it's only 800¥. Thrift stores are great.