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Tae’s grades were not doing great.  Granted, they hadn’t been for a while, but Jin and Chaeha both had had so much on their plate that they simply hadn’t had time to deal with this.  Today, however, they couldn’t ignore it any longer.  The quarterly grades had come in, and Tae’s grades were worse than ever.  Before, he’d at least had a solid C or D in his classes.  Now, nearly all of them were F’s.

After dinner, Jin sat down with Tae at the kitchen table.  The eight-year-old was visibly fidgety as he sat down.  Jin wasn’t entirely sure how he should deal with this.  There had to be some reason Tae wasn’t doing well.  Jimin was making solid A’s and B’s.

“Tae, are you having trouble in class?”

Tae hesitated for a moment before nodding. “The work is hard.”

“Why haven’t you asked for help?”

“You and Eomma are busy all the time, and Hobi and Joon are working….”

“What about Jimin?”

Tae shrugged. “Said he can’t help me.”

Jin sighed. “Can you ask for help in the future?”

Tae nodded. “Can I go play now?”

“Sure.”

——————–

That weekend just so happened to be Xander’s little sister Ella’s birthday.  She was turning two already.  Usually, Jin would’ve gone with the boys, but he and Chaeha were ready for a day off from having six kids, so he dropped the three youngest boys off at noon and headed home.

That afternoon, Mrs. Johnson dropped the three of them back off at the Kim’s house.

“Appa!  We got goodie bags!” Kookie exclaimed as he ran through the door.  He was holding up a plastic bag covered in flowers that was full of candy.

“Oh, really?” Jin asked. “That’s great!  What’s in it?”

“Lotssssss of candy!”

“Great,” Jin grunted.  Kookie would definitely be bouncing off the walls in a few hours.

“Jin, can we talk in the kitchen?” Mrs. Johnson asked once the twins had disappeared down the hall.

“Sure.  Did someone misbehave?” he asked as the two of them entered the kitchen.

She shook her head. “No.  It’s about Tae.  I’ve noticed for a while he’s been very hyper, and he has trouble paying attention and listening to instructions.”

Jin cringed. “Yeah, we have issues with that sometimes too.  He’s failing most of his classes right now.  I’ll talk to him.”

“Jin, I think you need to take him in to get an assessment.  I was a psychiatrist for about eight years, and he’s showing many symptoms of ADHD.”

Jin’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

She nodded. “If he has it, putting him on Adderall may seriously help him in school.”

“I’ll look into it.  Thank you, seriously.  We’ve been having issues for years but I could never figure out what was up.”

——————–

Jin looked into it almost immediately.  Tae checked nearly every symptom on the list of symptoms he could find.  This meant a doctor’s visit was in store.

“Why are we here?” Tae asked, bouncing his knee as he picked at one of his nails.

Jin was wondering how he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary before.  Now that he’d actually looked at a list of symptoms, he realized that there were many things Tae had done that were odd that Jin had always brushed off.  He’d always just thought it was Tae’s personality.  Restless, impatient, and emotional.  After all, none of the other boys were.  Really, it had never caused any significant problems until now.  Jin probably wouldn’t have noticed anything if Tae’s grades weren’t so bad.

“You’re having trouble concentrating, right?  We’re gonna see if we can do something about that.”

Tae looked up at him. “Why did you bring me to the doctor, then?”

“Because the doctor can do something about it.”

It took more than a week to get any real results back from the doctor.  They had to interview many of Tae’s teachers along with a few other adults before they had a definitive answer.  On top of all this, Tae was extremely jittery the whole week, and trying to get him through any work was a struggle.  Even Jimin had tried helping him, but nothing seemed to work.

Finally, the results returned.  Mrs. Johnson had been right.  Tae had ADHD.  Getting him to actually take his prescribed medication was a whole other ballpark, though.

Jin would stick a pill in front of Tae at breakfast and tell him to take it once he was done eating.  Tae would forget.  Just about every time.  So, Jin started watching him to make sure he took it.  Tae would flat out refuse to take it some mornings, and Jin didn’t have the time to fight him if he wanted all three of the boys out of the house in time for school.

Thankfully, Tae’s grades did seem to be improving as he worked on the days where he took his medication.  He no longer had a single F in any class, and his teacher was very happy with the improvement.

Tae didn’t seem so happy, though.  Jin hadn’t noticed until one Saturday when Tae had again refused to take his medication.  The only time crunch they had today was that Kookie had a soccer game in fifteen minutes, but Hobi had taken him and Jimin to the field already, so Kookie wouldn’t miss his game even if Jin and Tae missed a few minutes.

“Tae, we can’t keep playing this game.  You need to take your medicine.  It helps you at school, right?  It helps you feel better.”

Tae frowned. “It does.”

“Why won’t you take it, then?”

Tae sniffled. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Min and Kookie don’t have to take it,” he replied sadly, his voice breaking.

Jin patted his head. “Yeah, they don’t need it.”

“That means I’m not normal.”

Jin squatted in front of him. “Tae, what’s wrong?”

Tae’s eyes were watering. “Min told some of the kids at school.  They said I’m stupid.” He sniffled. “And that I’m weird.”

“Oh, Tae,” Jin tugged the boy into his arms. “You’re not stupid, Tae.  You’re doing great now that you can focus better.”

“I just wanna be normal.”

“I know, baby.  But if you were normal, you wouldn’t be my Tae.”

Tae grumbled, clearly trying to keep a smile off his face.  Jin patted his back.

“You don’t have to be normal, Tae.  Ignore the kids at school.  They’re just mean.”

Tae leaned his head against Jin’s shoulder.

“Tae, if we want to make it to Kookie’s game on time we need to leave in a minute.  Can you take your medicine and go get Joon?”

Tae rubbed the tears off his cheeks before nodding.

When they got to the soccer fields, Jimin was quick to abandon Hobi to greet them.

“Tae, come kick the ball with me!”

Jin smiled as he watched the two of them run off to play together.  Even if Tae wasn’t being treated well by his classmates, at least he had his brothers.  They’d always accepted him for who he was, no matter if he was having a bad day or a good one, and that was all that really mattered at the end of the day.

“Hey!  You made me kick my shoe off!” Jimin laughed.

“That’s because you didn’t tie it!” Tae exclaimed.

“I don’t know how to!”

“Let me tie it, then,” Tae offered, already bending down to tie Jimin’s shoe for him.

Jin nodded.  They’d be just fine.  He did need to have a talk with Jimin about what he told the kids at school, though.