The Ranch

Henri (3)

June sees a messy boy carry an adult male through the doors. "Tih?" She recognises the dirt covered child.

Tih looks up, he raises the body a bit.

June understands," Put him on the bed. What hap-" She remembers Tih's disability and her words pause.

Luckily, she had something in front of her to distract her from her slight embarrassment. She had already noticed his bloody hair. Unfortunately for Henri, June needed to shave the back of his head to inspect the injury. On the bright side, Tih unconsciously held Henri in a princess carry and Tih's arm was holding his head. The cloth from his sleeve stopped any more blood from leaking out.

She only needs a couple minutes to identify the problem and administer a diagnosis. All he has is a slight concussion. The blood is from the bark tearing the first couple layers of his skin.

He'll need to rest for a while, but that's all. June wraps some gauze around his head, over the bald spot. A job well done, June turns to make some small talk with Tih.

This is the first time she's truly paid attention to the boy and only realized just now that he's also injured, maybe even more so than the man.

Drops of blood have already splattered on the clean floor. June frowns and without waiting another second, picks up the child and sets him down on an empty bed with his back facing her.

Some of the shredded cloth is sticking to the bloody wounds, which would be increasingly painful to take off once dried. The situation would be a lot worse if June hadn't noticed sooner, but the current situation is already very bad.

Not one inch of Tih's back isn't filled with red, purple, or black. There's even small chips of wood stuck in the skin in some places.

June takes the next two hours to first remove all the bloody remains of the hoodie. Then she carefully dabbed away all the blood, leaving only the bruises and wounds. She put on a disinfectant on the wounds, which should hurt for how large Tih's wounds are, but the child's muscles don't even twitch.

She took the next hour to suture all the open wounds with stitches. She then wrapped Tih's torso with bandages. While she was at it, she also cleaned Tih's bloody hands and face, and let him rinse his mouth with water when she notices the blood surrounding his mouth.

"Tih, does it hurt anywhere else?" June tries to ask in a coaxing voice.

Tih remains motionless on his stomach. She turns his face towards her and realizes the boy had already fallen asleep.

Since Tih couldn't tell her where the pain was coming from, June decided to just give Tih a full body inspection.

Other than the injuries on his back, Tih also overexerted his muscles and should be sore for the next week or so. Tih had strained his muscles when he vehemently latched into the animal that was much larger than him.

Tih and Henri stayed overnight, sleeping the entire time. Henri woke up around lunchtime the next day. June explained his injuries. He thanked June before paying all of his and Tih's medical expenses. Instructor Henri didn't want to wake Tih, so he left without saying anything.

Tih remained in his dreamless state for a lot longer. Kai and the others eventually found him after starting their search that morning, when Kai realized Tih didn't return last night. His condition was explained by June and they decided to take him back to their apartment. Kai pushes his body to the limits by carrying Tih on his back all the way back to the dorms. Luckily Tih isn't that heavy and has a small figure compared to Kai.

Tih woke up on his bed the next day with this weird feeling. He didn't know what it was, so he ignored it and got up to get dressed.

Kai came back to the apartment just in time to see Tih get up. He dashed over and carefully pushed Tih back in the bed," Woah woah woah, you still need to rest. If you move around too much your stitches might open. It might be fine for others, but with the way you got up just now, I don't think you're aware of your own pain."

Kai continued talking while helping Tih eat and drink," It's one thing after another with you. I really can't help but worry. If it goes on like this, I'll be diagnosed with heart problems in my twenties..."

Kai stares at the worrisome child," You're not even aware of your own surroundings. You show no concern for yourself or your wellbeing. On this island, everyone places themselves first and foremost, but you- But...that's just part of who you are, isn't it? Sigh, I'm going to have to get used to this." Kai shows a sour smile.

Tih is only allowed to leave their apartment when the stitches could be taken out. Kai brings him to June to have her remove them and he's finally free to leave the apartment when he wants. Tih wasn't concerned about his injuries but Kai was and made sure to regularly apply medicine, so once Tih completely healed, his scars were very light, which are almost unnoticeable on his already white skin.

Tih went back to his daily schedule, but after that incident, Tih gained a new habit of taking injured people back to June. You see, Tih had always been passing people as he explored the island. Some were just fine, some were fighting, some had red, and some weren't moving at all. Before, Tih minded his own business and would move along, but now, he would pick up the red people and carry them to June.

Tih didn't touch the not moving ones because he thought they were sleeping. There was that one time he, Basile, and Abel sat still with their eyes closed for a long time too and they weren't hurt.

Because of Tih's intrudence on their lives, June had an increase in business. On one hand, she earned a lot more money but on the other, it was a lot more work than usual. June didn't know whether to be happy or annoyed, but she didn't turn paying customers away. Better her do all the work than give it to competing businesses.

The injured that were taken also didn't know whether to be happy or not. They were thankful that someone tried to help, but doctor visits were still expensive. Some people even went into debt afterward. Only they can judge for themselves whether debt is better or worse than death.