Being remarried must be rather stressful. Nonetheless, a proper wedding was required by the ever-so-persistent mother. My grandmother actually. Poor Aunt Jen was pulling her hair out over the colors and flowers for March. Now I was stuck glaring at myself, from all angles. The fitting room was lined with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Wearing the oversized dress practically falling off my shoulders was not my favorite way to spend Saturday morning.
My mom, as usual, was commenting on 'how gorgeous' I looked. One of the most embarrassing ordeals because the short, pale, skinny girl glaring back does not exactly fill out the chocolate brown dress. After half an hour of painstaking pining, false complementing, and jabbing myself on the needles sticking out from the dress, it was done.
So as a ‘you’re-such-a-good-patient-girl-so-I’m-gonna-treat-you-like-a-little-girl’ my mom took me to Borders. A new store, plenty of books to look over, I scoured the store for all of fifteen minutes before coming upon the paradise.
They have a fantastic manga section. Now my mother, deciding to ‘bond’ with me, stood next to me.
One word: Yaoi.
They had a freaking shelf full of it. Each one with the gorgeous men staring back. Now as I stood next to the shelf, biting my tongue and trying not to glance over at the shelf. Unfortunately, I inherited my attention to everything from the very person standing next to me-
"Are those both boys…?"
Myself, plowing through the vast volumes of Vampire Knight, glanced up to see what she was looking at, "Hnn-? A- Ahie!" At which point I quickly relocated her to a new section, abandoning my beloved Zero to the shelves.
"What's Yay-oy....? Is it different from man-ja?"
Resisting the strong urge to give her proper pronunciation, I shuffled her over to a stand, "Is there pocky over there? I want to try the strawberry if you wouldn't mind looking."
"but-"
"Please?"
"Okay. They have strawberry?" She plodded over to the stand, recently my mother had grown to like pocky very much. Also giving me quite a benefit, seeing as she was now happy to buy it, as long as she got a bit. I'm sure she didn't forget the Yaoi altogether, but momentarily forgot it. But she was set on 'hanging out with her daughter', and soon found me again. I'd managed to thumb through one, not finding anything particularly interesting to oogle at.
Close to finishing my second, my persistent mother (Now armed with pocky), slid into my peripheral vision, forcing me to leave the book. I desperately made futile attempts to steer her towards a separate section,
But no. Nope. She wanted to chat with me on my favorites, what I liked, the always present hey-she-writes-that-book-you-like-what-about-this-one?
"Why are some of them in plastic-wrap? Are they special?" my mom proceeded to pick up a copy of a manga unknown to me, bound in cellophane-like plastic.
"Yeah. They're special." I quickly averted her to a separate section yet again.
"Do you read this one? It has vampires." she pointed to a flashy cover with some man wielding a gun.
"No, it didn't look very interesting."
"Okay. Hey why is there a banner that says May contain mature content?"
I glanced up, "Wh-where?"
"There. You’re not reading them, are you?" she eyed me pointing to the huge black label slapped on all of the shelves.
"A-ah… ehm, w-well no. It’s for older people… they’re marked."
"They are?"
"Yeah... it tells on the back. Don't worry!" I made the nervous thats-silly-why-would-you-say-that laugh that all older people seem to buy, "You can tell by the cover sometimes. Usually the cute ones are fine."
"does that boy have ears?" She proceeded to point to one of the only yaoi/shōnen ai mangas that was not on 'the shelf', Loveless. ‘he’s cute! Have you read that one? Why do some of these say yay-oy?"
"I'm ready to check out. Come on."