Ryouma. Well, that figured. Kakashi's eye lingered on the granulating pink flesh of still-healing scars for a moment, following the web-work they made over naked skin, before he looked down at Kuromaru's dropped scrap of fabric. It was an eyepatch. Plain black, entirely unremarkable, decorated only with a band of slim elastic to hold it in place. He had a few himself.

He didn't recall ever celebrating over one.

Kuromaru's haunches shimmied as his tail swept the floor again. One gold eye gleamed, fixed on Kakashi's face. Black fur crested like a shadowy halo. He smelled like a fireworks display, electric with excitement.

Adorable to the average civilian, provided they liked ginormous, battle-scarred dogs. Less so to a man with no plans to be a middle-ranker in someone else's pack.

Kakashi debated his options. Without Ryouma around to actually prove who was in charge, he could either dominate Kuromaru--which didn't really prove anything, beyond the fact that he could dominate Kuromaru--or ignore the wolfhound entirely. Both would technically put him in charge--betas came to alphas; alphas didn't cowtow to betas--but only of Kuromaru. And only when Kuromaru was around him and not Ryouma. And only so long as Kakashi was prepared to defend his place.

Which, granted, was pretty much forever. But that was a lot of effort to gain a lot of nothing.

The other option was to put up with Kuromaru's continued, eccentric attention for the foreseeable future.

He exhaled, straightened his shoulders, gathered his chakra like an ice-calm cloak, and stepped forward. Into Kuromaru's personal space and over his eyepatch, claiming the bizarre little trophy. He tipped his head down to find a level of eye-contact that dismissed without aggressively challenging; decent alphas didn't need to fight.

"I'm taking a shower," he said. "The eyepatch is lovely. You can get it back when I'm done."