Life, Hyuuga Neji thought dispassionately as he watched a demon's host tickle his giggle-stricken wife, was stranger than he was accustomed to imagining.

The demon's host reached over and grabbed a fistful of Neji's long hair, and renewed his tickle-assault with better armaments.

"Some of us are trying to sleep, you know," Neji commented. His wife immediately clamped both hands over her mouth. The gesture hurt, a little, uncomfortably, in ways he didn't have words for. So instead of struggling for the words, he pulled his hair free of the demon's grasp and bent that shaggy blonde head toward his wife's unprotected and tickle-prone throat, and he said, "Besides, you're fluffier anyway."

"I am not fluffy!" came the predictable howl of protest.

Neji rolled his eyes -- not that anyone but another Hyuuga could tell -- and pulled the blankets up to his chin.

"I'm not fluffy! I'm fierce and intimidating and -- and -- and -- stop smirking, you bastard, I'm -- hey, back me up here: am I fluffy?"

"...um... just a little..."

...Neji had never seen any demon-possessed terror of the countryside look so devastated at a simple observation of fluffiness before. Of course, he wasn't familiar with all that many demon-possessed terrors of the countryside, since the sum total equalled two. But the other one certainly wouldn't have looked so miserable at the thought of being called fluffy. Which was only natural, since the other one would never have been called fluffy in the first place, for fear of grievous bodily harm likely involving the removal of any tongue responsible for applying the word...

All in all, Neji thought, life was certainly stranger than he was accustomed to imagining. But on the whole, it had turned out much better than he'd feared.