rare is this love (keep it covered)

Iwaizumi pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the contact name, and a complicated array of emotions flickers over his face. “Sorry, I promised a—friend that I’d call him before takeoff,” he says.

Ishida doesn’t miss the hesitation before friend, that second of loaded silence that could mean everything or nothing at all. He nods and busies himself tapping through movie selections on the small screen in front of him. He means to give Iwaizumi his privacy, really, but the plane is small, and he doesn’t have enough self-control to avoid eavesdropping.

On a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo, a businessman headed home for the holidays meets a college student who could use some advice.