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Shouyou finally gets his prescription for testosterone three weeks into the summer between his first and second year at Karasuno High.
He waits another two days to pick it up from the pharmacy and, as soon as he and his mom walk out of the store, he texts Tobio to come over.
The responding "???" is ignored until they get home to find a waiting Tobio looking annoyed on their doorstep. It's quickly wiped away when Natsu runs up to him with an excited "Yama!!!"
Shouyou is not scared of needles… per say. He just hates them. He has a personal vendetta against whoever thought it was a good idea to stick someone with such a thing and inject them with a million different things.
Which is why he convinces Tobio to do his first (first!!!!!) shot for him, since they’ve been doing their own for years.
“I should have gone for the gel,” Shouyou mutters as he watches Tobio uncap the draw needle and draw in a dose of air. “I knew I should have. I don’t care that it’s more expensive. I would have found the money… some way!”
Tobio rolls his eyes, darting the needle into the vial with a violent jerk. Shouyou glares at the sight of Tobio pressing the air into it and flipping it upside down. “I don’t know how you do it.”
She shrugs. “It’s never bothered me.”
“Next time I’m going for the gel.”
“Okay,” they frown at the vial as they flick it, emptying and redrawing from the syringe a few times. Eventually, he hums in satisfaction and places it back onto the counter. “You can stop looking if it bothers you so much.”
Shouyou squirms in his seat. “I can’t! It’s like watching a car crash. A really, really terrible car crash that I’m at the center of-“
“-oh my god-“
“Can you just hurry already?”
Tobio pops the needle out of the vial and twists it off the syringe, throwing it in Shouyou’s brand-new sharps container with a calculated flick. “I’m almost done.”
Shouyou’s stomach swoops in a mix of excitement and anxiety. He might explode from the amount of feelings flooding him. Maybe the needle will pop his skin like a balloon and they’ll all come rushing out. He shakes the thought out of his head and drums his fingers on the bottom of his seat.
“You need to wash you’re hands again,” Tobio says, looking at the way his hands are touching the chair, because she’s a stickler for sanitation and has made him wash his hands three times already even though he’s not even the one holding the syringe. He groans, running to the bathroom and back in record time.
“Sit.” They say as he catches the tail end of him putting the smaller needle on the syringe. Shouyou does so obediently. “Where do you want it?”
Shouyou has no clue where they’re even supposed to go. His doctor said something about putting it in fat… right? He regrets not taking out the printed instructions he gave him before they started. He shrugs. Tobio just stares, unphased.
“Your thigh is probably the best. If not, we try your stomach or your butt-“
“What-“
“-but your mom would have to do that. I’m not doing that. Gross.”
They both twist their faces in distaste because of course they do — they’re teenagers.
She catches the leg of a chair with her ankle and pulls it up to sit next to Shouyou, capped needle in her other hand, and grabs around Shouyou’s thigh until she finds a good enough fat deposit.
Shouyou hisses at the cold of the antiseptic wipe Tobio rubs across his thigh. Now it makes sense why they told him to wear shorts.
After it’s dried enough for him, he uncaps the needle and pinches the section between his thumb and his forefingers.
“Take a breath,” Tobio says. Shouyou squeezes his eye’s shut and decidedly does notbreathe a single breath. He can imagine they’re raising an eyebrow at him when they say “do you really want to piss me off right now? Breathe.”
They punch harder at the spot before relaxing their fingers again and it’s just enough for him to let out a breath and then another — eyes still shut tight until he feels a poke at his skin and morbid curiosity compels him enough to open his eyes and watch Tobio plunge the dose into his body.
It surprises him how normal he feels. It’s just… a shot. He finally has the thing he’s been yearning for for years, crying over on the worst of his days and envying on his best, and it doesn’t feel like anything but a prick of his skin and a slight tug as the needle exits. Tobio winces at the small pull of his skin with the needle. “Sorry.”
None of that stops him from bursting in tears. Tobio disposes of the syringe and needle in a panic, deciding to clean up the rest later, shifting his attention back to the redhead.
Shouyou sniffles. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. Until next week, at least.”
“It’s real?”
“Of course it’s real,” she says while patting an unnecessary band-aid on his thigh.
(It’s part of the experience,” she had argued when Shouyou tried to say he didn’t need one, swatting his hand away.)
They grunt in surprise when Shouyou pulls them into a hug, pretending to resist it. Their eye’s widen and protests stop when Shouyou gives him a tight squeeze and tucks his head into her shoulder.
“Thank you. For being here.”
They relax into his grip and wrap their own arms around him in return. “There’s nothing to thank me for, dumbass.”