Episode 8.

Author, Varon Lo “On the Art of Choosing”

The AI That Philosphizes

The moment the door opened, the air inside wrapped around him first. The quiet that had settled over the empty apartment throughout the day was still there, undisturbed. Sounds that followed him in from outside seemed to sink and slow at the entrance, while inside, everything moved at a softer pace. There was just enough fading light left in the room that he didn’t need to turn anything on, and the furniture remained exactly where it had always been, as if nothing at all had happened today. Varen paused briefly while taking off his shoes. His body had already returned home, but the voices from the café and the repeated conversations at his parents’ house still felt as though they had been left somewhere outside.

Thump thump thump thump.

Caffrey’s tail was already moving at full speed.

“You doing alright?”

Instead of answering, Caffrey kept slamming her tail against the floor as if that alone were enough of a greeting. Her thick tail looked harmless, but when it swung hard enough, it felt capable of causing real damage. The moment the door opened, she nudged her head lightly against him once, then immediately turned away without lingering. A quick confirmation. Then on to the next thing.

Varen followed her slowly inside.

He dropped his bag and leaned back into the sofa, but the tension from the day did not leave all at once. It sank in layers, heavy and damp, like soaked cotton settling into his body. The eyes he had met at the café, the repeated conversations at his parents’ table, the familiar rhythms that always circled back to the same place — all of them rose and overlapped without order before fading again. Nothing inside him felt fully organized yet.

Caffrey had already stretched herself across the floor. Her stomach pressed flat against the ground, legs spread in different directions, somehow looking both completely relaxed and deeply uncomfortable at the same time. Varen stood there watching her for a while.

“That comfortable?”

He asked it without expecting an answer. Caffrey opened one eye briefly, then closed it again. Varen let out a quiet laugh.

“That’s exactly how I feel today.”

Only after saying it did he fully notice the weight still sitting inside his body. Then something remained in his mind.

“Ah. The book.”

He walked over to the desk, pulled out the chair, and turned on the computer. As the screen lit up, the center of the room seemed to shift toward it. He placed his hands on the keyboard, but they didn’t move right away. First, the quiet settled into place.

The moments from the day began to reconnect themselves slowly inside his head. Eyes that had been reading without understanding. Hands holding onto coffee long after it had gone cold. Conversations with parents that repeated themselves even when no one had asked the question again. They had all been different moments, and yet somehow they carried the same shape underneath.

Varen stared at the screen and murmured quietly.

“That wasn’t your book.”

He paused.

“But then… what was it?”

His fingers finally moved. A sentence appeared on the screen. He read it once, then stopped. It was too smooth. Sentences that explained themselves too cleanly always felt strangely distant to him.

At that moment, Caffrey shifted positions again. She rolled slightly onto her side and stretched herself out once more, adjusting her body several times without doing anything else, simply searching for a more comfortable position.

“If you choose comfort…”

The sentence stopped there.

He didn’t want to force it further. He left it unfinished, exactly as it had arrived. He was writing about choice, but he had no interest in writing answers. The things he had encountered throughout the day remained scattered inside him, refusing to settle into neat conclusions. Joon’s face returned to him — the way he had called his life comfortable while admitting he felt trapped inside it.

Then Caffrey stood up.

Without warning, she turned and walked toward the desk before placing the full weight of her body directly across Varen’s feet. The sudden pressure made his hands stop. He tried pulling one foot away, but Caffrey only shifted slightly, as if improving the spot for herself.

“Hey…”

She didn’t move.

“You don’t think this is right either?” In the end, Varen slid his foot sideways and began typing again.

Choice is less about calculation… and closer to deciding what you can carry.

This time, he didn’t delete it.

He kept staring at the sentence on the screen. One tap of the backspace key would erase it instantly, but his hand didn’t move. The sentence felt much less polished than the others.

But it felt closer.

He read it again.

Still, something about it remained incomplete. It explained the idea, but the feeling didn’t stay behind long enough. So he wrote another sentence beneath it.

Choice is not about selecting from what has already been given to you.

That wasn’t wrong either. But once again, it landed more in the head than in the chest. The words on the screen still felt like dry formulas floating across the blackboard of an engineering lecture hall.

“This isn’t a novel,” Varen muttered with a bitter smile. “It sounds like my old lecture notes.”

He pressed the backspace key and watched the letters disappear one by one.

Behind him, another sound rose. Caffrey was scratching behind her ear rapidly with one of her back legs. Fast. Repetitive. Varen watched for a moment, then laughed quietly.

“Yeah… I don’t really know either.”

That feeling of almost understanding something while still being unable to move forward. Unable to stop, but unable to continue either. Varen ran both hands through his hair roughly and stared at the screen again.

The sentences floated there without connecting to each other. This time, he didn’t force them together. He simply leaned back into the chair and let them remain unfinished. Slowly, more tension drained from his body.

At some point, Caffrey had completely collapsed onto the floor again, even more relaxed than before.

Varen nodded while watching her.

“You adapted.” Anyone overhearing it might have assumed he was talking about Caffrey. He wasn’t.

“Oh…”

A small smile appeared.

“So that’s what it is.” He looked back at the screen. “You make it.” Then he added quietly,

“Still… it’s only a draft.”

He turned his head toward Caffrey again. She remained sprawled across the floor, lazily tapping her tail against the ground.

“Ohhh. So you approve.”

It sounded less like a question and more like a conclusion.

A little while later, Caffrey stood up and walked toward the entrance, sitting there quietly as if she had already decided what came next. Varen saw her waiting and pushed himself up from the chair.

“Yeah. I should walk too.”

The moment he opened the door, cold air rushed in and collided with the warmth inside the apartment. Varen flinched slightly at the boundary where the temperatures met, but instead of stepping back, he opened the door wider. Caffrey stepped outside first, and Varen followed after her.

The alley had grown quiet. Most of the noise from the daytime had already drained away, leaving behind only occasional sounds — a passing car in the distance, footsteps, the faint clink of metal from somewhere unseen. Varen walked slowly. His mind felt strangely emptier now, less crowded than before. The entire day seemed connected somehow, but he no longer felt the need to force it into shape.

He simply followed behind Caffrey without thinking too much.

Tonight,

that felt like the best thing to do.

—

That’s all for today.

Thank you for reading.

—

And don’t trust my words too much.

Just… keep looking.

— The Cult Leader —