Subject to Study (Naga!Brothers x Reader)

Chapter 51

To say that the next two days were boring would be a large understandment.

While I had deterred Jyushi from coming close to my home, it didn't stop him from trying to help me with reinforcing it with flexible branches or gathering large leaves to use as a kind of wall. Focusing my efforts on building out my little home on the naga island, I had hoped to make the time fly faster by diverting my attention to build, but instead kept finding myself thinking about how I could make my predicament more tolerable. I didn't want to hide away from the nagas and I knew that they wouldn't turn into uncontrollable monsters that only had an urge to force themselves on me, but I knew that we'd be able to talk about a solution to this problem that we had.

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I woke before the sun rose on the second day, folding up the cobbled-together blanket that I had made from the torn shirts that I had used to hold the knives through the trip back to the island. More than half of the walls were constructed around the small enclosure, the exposed part facing the western horizon and the wetlands that faded into a beachhead before diving underneath the ocean.

Stretching out my body, I grabbed a loose-fitting tee shirt and jeans -- along with a change of undergarments -- before making my way towards the nearby spring with the selected toiletries. During the last few days, I had started to learn the signs of when Jyushi was in the area (or at least when he wanted me to know that he was around) and took in a relaxed breath when I didn't see or hear any clues of his presence near the spring. I still gave a visual sweep of the area to make sure that the other nagas weren't trying to spy on me, the incident with Todo still fresh in my mind.

Satisfied with the emptiness of the immediate area around the spring, I undressed and dove into the cold water, letting my aching muscles stretch as I slowly swam around the spring. Taking a deep breath when I surfaced, I went through my new bathing regiment, starting with my hair and face before moving down to my chest and arms, finishing off with my legs and feet. After roughly rubbing off the soap and shampoo in the clear spring waters, I climbed up to the shore and grabbed the towel sitting on a nearby rock, quickly drying off and slipping into the clean clothes I had chosen.

"Are you finished?"

I stifled a scream into the towel as I heard a voice suddenly call out from the furthest brush, taking a few steps away and pulling the towel away from my face, glaring angrily at whoever it was that spoke.

The pink dots were hard to miss as the youngest naga pushed forward through the foliage, his eyes closed within the black and yellow scales that created a mask over the top half of his face. Todo kept moving until he was a few feet from the edge of the spring, his eyes still closed.

"Todo..." I slung the towel over my shoulder, crossing my arms comfortably over my chest as I spoke, "What are you doing here?"

"I was tasked with telling you that we can't figure out how to move that flying thing from the island," His face shifted a little, "May I open my eyes?"

"You can," Keeping my gaze away from his own, I watched from my peripheral as Todo opened his eyes, glancing around the area before looking back towards me, "Is that what you all were doing while I was...preoccupied?"

"For the most part, since we didn't want to really be near you," He scoffed, "Jyushi was the only one that didn't really offer his help, so we had guessed that he was doing something with you. From your scent, it wasn't our first thought."

"You thought he was mating with me," I simply raised an eyebrow, tackling the subject head on.

"Most of us did, considering you chose a den in his territory."