Home Is Where the Heart Is

Chapter Fifteen

Dr. Myers gave them some materials about depression in children, and Jeongguk, seconds after leaving the woman's office, scheduled Yoongi into therapy three times a week.

"He needs all the help he can get," Jeongguk told him that night as he stripped Seokjin's bed to change the sheets because he couldn't do it. Couldn't wasn't precisely accurate because Seokjin knew he could change his own sheets, but the door was wide open and the boys could walk by or into the room any second, and Seokjin wanted to show them all that it was okay, encouraged, even, to accept help when they needed it. "Especially with his abandonment and trust issues, hyung. I can't — no — I won't let him think we're going to return him to the agency because of his depression, like his last families did." They'd learned in the session that Yoongi's first removal had been, according to Yoongi, due to his depression — and as much as Seokjin was loathe to agree, it was probably true.

Yoongi's first home had been so hands-off with Yoongi that he'd, most likely, never been diagnosed. The stress of a new, older child suddenly in the home, his old foster parents paying even less attention to him than before, and his symptoms showing more — to the point where Yoongi had asked for help, begged his new brother not to tell — had indeed, in Seokjin's best guess, pushed the family to return Yoongi to the agency.

It was a vicious cycle. A new child came, or a major change happened, and the tiny things the other families had once considered 'misbehavior' became more than that.

It made Seokjin want to scream: the cruelty, the ignorance, the laziness — Yoongi had a chronic illness; it happened to be in his brain. That was the sum of it. It was more than that, Seokjin knew, but still, six homes had let Yoongi go without even trying to understand him. Every single one of those homes had, arguably, made it worse.

They would do better. They knew what Yoongi was fighting against now, and they were going to do everything in their power to help him — which started with showing him and proving to him in every way they could that he was theirs and that he wasn't going anywhere.

Jeongguk dropped the pile of bedclothes into the hamper. "So, I want him to go three times a week. I considered more, but I don't want to overwhelm him. At least for the month until he's in school. Then I'll drop it down to two."

He and Jeongguk had agreed to let Yoongi miss the first month of school to help him work on managing his emotions in a positive way and to see how the low-dose antidepressants he'd been prescribed would work for him.

"He's going to Taehyung's school, right?" Seokjin asked, watching Jeongguk arrange the flat sheet. "They can go together in the mornings. I can take them."

The sharp gaze Jeongguk leveled him with made Seokjin cringe.

"You're going to drop the boys off at school with a broken shoulder?" Jeongguk asked, attending to the sheets again. "You're going to get hurt again, hyung. The trains are going to be packed in the morning. An hour and a half in that kind of environment will make your injury worse."

An hour and a half every morning to drop his sons off at school. They were, unfortunately, enrolled at different schools. Seokjin didn't have a matter of choice. Taehyung was a hybrid; Hoseok was not.

Seokjin had found one school within commuting distance that accepted both hybrids and humans, but he'd missed the application window. Not that he would have been able to apply back in March when the process was open anyway; the agency had an approved list of schools fosters could attend. Holistic public schools weren't exactly at the top of the agency's approval list.

"It's not that bad," Seokjin mumbled.

Jeongguk sighed and pulled up the comforter haphazardly, turning to look at him with hands on his hips. "Hyung. You have an injury. You had a surgery."