"Ugh, my throat."

I rubbed my heavy eyelids with my hands.

In the pitch-dark room, where not a single ray of light slipped past the blackout curtains, the only thing glowing was my phone screen. The constant flickering seeped through my barely open eyes. Ugh. Groaning, I reached for my phone, which had been rolling around somewhere beside me, only to realize why it was lighting up so insistently.

Five missed calls, two unread messages. In my half-asleep daze, I checked the oldest one first.

"Son, I'm sorry I still can’t make it home. The clients made a mess of things, then all took off for the Christmas holidays. Can you believe that? All this talk about labor rights and work-life balance—I'm sick of it. But I’ll push to make sure we at least spend New Year's together. Love you always."

"……."

Now that I think about it, for most of my life, I never really spent holidays in any special way. I barely even remember how I spent most of them. Usually, we’d just celebrate all the occasions at once whenever my parent was home that month. So why should I suddenly feel sad or lonely about it now?