Every once in a while when I get a Borders Rewards coupon, I find that none of the series I’m collecting have the next volume in stock. When that happens, I start browsing the shelves looking for shrinkwrapped yaoi.

And that’s what happened last weekend, when I picked up Ritsu Natsumizu’s Love Bus Stop. I had never heard of the author, but the cover illustration spoke to my fondness of salaryman yaoi, and the title was silly enough to catch my curiosity.

The book is a collection of one-shot stories that have very little to do with each other except that most of them do feature salarymen. The art style is nothing spectacular – your fairly standard broad-shouldered, long-faced male character designs typical of the genre – though it’s pleasantly clean and crisp. And the stories themselves aren’t terribly deep either, though they’re entertaining enough.

The title story, about a man who finds himself fantasizing about a man he sees at the bus stop several times a week, was my favorite; a little silly, a little fluffy, and with just a hint of smut.

The second story is about a man unexpectedly reunited with his high school crush. The third, about a middle-school teacher visiting a flower shop as part of his students’ vocational training, is probably the least cliché of the bunch, and is also the only story not about salarymen (though the teacher still wears a dark suit and glasses, so the look is there at least!) Last comes a story of two coworkers who share a drunken kiss at a party that leads to more than either of them had anticipated.

None of these stories are particularly groundbreaking and all are too short to be terribly in-depth in terms of plot and character development, but they’re pleasant enough and there are a few fairly hot scenes sprinkled throughout . (It should be noted that despite the shrinkwrapping the sex scenes, though plentiful, aren’t actually terribly explicit.)

I liked the book enough that I’m interested in Ritsu Natsumizu’s other work, but all in all Love Bus Stop is a pleasant diversion and nothing more. If you have a thing for guys in suits, I highly recommend it, but it isn’t particularly compelling.