Characters: Shizune, Sakura, Hinata, Ino, Tenten
Summary: Ladies, what do you want?
Pairings: None needed for this oneshot.
Author's Note: She does seem the sort, doesn't she?
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
It's probably not a coincidence that the four kunoichi of the famously so-called "Konoha Twelve" have weddings that amount to the total antithesis of normal shinobi weddings. Shinobi weddings are usually small and private with no audience except for the one witness and the officiating priest or judge. Instead, Sakura, Hinata, Ino and Tenten all ape the style of civilian weddings and somehow manage to pull it off without it becoming a grand catastrophe.
In every case, Shizune's there, behind the scenes and helping out. All the girls know her and like her, and she's always been a helping hand to them, so even if she's not a bridesmaid in any of their weddings she still has a huge hand in their weddings.
Namely, in assisting each of the blushing brides with the selection of their wedding dresses.
Tenten is first, applying oils and chemicals to her hair to strip it of its frizziness, just to have it lie flat and sleek for one day in her life. Other than that, there is nothing in the way of cosmetics and she's beautiful as she is.
The eldest kunoichi of the four is also the calmest concerning her own wedding, not displaying anything even remotely resembling wedding jitters. She is totally and utterly calm and sure about everything, and if anything Shizune's far giddier than Tenten herself.
At first, Shizune's surprised by Tenten's choice in a wedding dress, but after a moment it all makes sense. Tenten's mother's family is from the Empire to the distant west, and her choice of clothing on her wedding day only serves to underscore this fact.
A bright, vivid red cheongsam, short-sleeved and brushing at the knees, thick, rich silk brocaded with black designs. Coupled with her loose hair, Tenten is nearly unrecognizable, more stunning than she's ever been in her life, at least in Shizune's opinion.
She hopes the groom will agree.
Hinata is the next, eight months later.
She comes the closest to reflecting traditional values with her own wedding, dressing in a kimono and binding her hair with the traditional ornaments for the wedding of a daughter of the Hyuuga main house and the jewelry to match.
Hinata too is wearing silk, as all the brides will. A lavender silk kimono, silver spangles all over splattered like someone took silver paint with a paint brush and then shook the brush over the kimono lying inert on the ground. Where Tenten's dress is vividly striking, Hinata's is understatedly lovely, displaying all the subtlety that she has ever embodied in her life.
Hinata is, without a doubt, the most nervous about being married. Shizune rubs her fingers comfortingly as they sit by a fire (it's the middle of winter), and softly reassures her that she's making the right decision, that everything will be fine, that her husband-to-be loves her and will always be true to her and will never leave her, all the while feeling a sharp pang in her mind that she ignores and pushes back quickly, so as to avoid it getting on her face.
Eventually, Hinata is reassured, her faith and confidence bolstered as nothing ever could. Shizune watches from the back of the room while the vows are said, sticking to the shadows since she wasn't able to change into something nice and is still wearing her coarse black yukata.
Ino will be the only girl to wear white to her wedding.
Shizune is, of course, thrilled for her, utterly, totally thrilled when she hears the news. Ino's been dating this boy for a grand total of nearly six years, and he's finally worked up the nerve to propose. At twenty-five, by the standards of a kunoichi Ino's not getting any younger (neither is Shizune, she realizes when she looks in the mirror and finds a gray hair, a single silver hair, nestling among the deep black strands), and it's about time, really.
Ino is so bright and giggly and happy just before the wedding's about to start that Shizune wonders if she's going to have to sedate her to have her somewhat calm at the altar. Sakura's just as bad, holding a small, callused hand up to her lips.
Standing in the brightly lit dressing room, standing on a stool and swishing her skirt so the curve of her alabaster, shapely legs and her three-inch white heels, Ino smiles at her former medical trainer and asks her what she thinks.
Ino is wearing a plain, white silk gown, with thin straps and a neckline sitting just above the breasts. The skirt hugs her waist and thighs, and flares out at a diagonal angle from roughly the knee down.
Shizune answers rightly. She tells her she's gorgeous.
Ino will completely outshine everyone else in the room today.
Sakura is the last to get married. She will be dead two years later, but for now she's thirty, and wearing a dress that Shizune points out dubiously looks far more like a simple summer dress a woman would wear on a day trip out shopping or to the park than a wedding dress.
Sakura glares at her and Shizune retracts her comment, holding up her hands in a placatory fashion. Today is Sakura's day, and things will be done her way, as she's had to insist to her difficult fiancé on more than one occasion. Shizune personally thinks Sakura's making a mistake, marrying the man that she is, but every time she says so Sakura just shoots her down defensively.
Eventually, Shizune stops out of pity. This is… This isn't desperation on Sakura's part, she's pretty sure. Sakura isn't the best-looking girl in town but she could have had any man she wanted, maybe one more suited to her than the pick she's forced herself to live with now.
Instead, this is… Shizune's not sure what it is. Maybe it's just the trapped feeling of an animal that can't get out of a cage. Maybe it's that Sakura has too much pride to admit to the world that she made a mistake. Maybe it's that she knows this is wrong, but isn't willing to be "that" bride, the runaway bride, the woman who runs out on her man at the altar.
She's just as trapped as she would be if she were a pretty pink bird in a cage.
Shizune takes a step back and stares at Sakura's dress. Like Tenten's it's knee-length, and like Ino's it's sleeveless. It has wide straps and a slightly sloping collar. The fabric isn't skin tight but it clings to her small chest and girlish hips all the same. The colors are mauve and maroon and pale pink flower patterns, with a barely visible white background.
The darker flowers almost look like blood.
Shizune watched as four kunoichi became brides. Some found happiness, others did not, but all made beautiful brides. All became the true focal point of their own weddings. And all made a decent showing of themselves.
Shizune watched as the years passed down on her own life, unforgiving, and still, she spent them alone. No one ever looked at her the way they did at Tenten, at Haruno Sakura, at Yamanaka Ino, at Hyuuga Hinata. No one ever considered her a possible bride for them. She simply wasn't considered suitable to be a wife.
She always told herself that she didn't mind, that she regretted nothing, that none of this bothered her.
But still, as she watched from the back of the room as her four girls got married, there was a pang in her stomach that had nothing to do with tears of joy, and, in the back of her mind, she wished, just a little bit, that it could have been her up there.