Saturday opened with a kind of brightness that felt rehearsed. The harbor stretched wide and restless, boats bobbing like punctuation in a long sentence of blue. Mira arrived before the crowd, balancing a crate of pastries against her hip. The smell of sugar and salt competed in the air.

Aiden’s booth stood near the waterline, shaded by a striped awning that looked one breeze away from freedom. He was already setting up, sleeves rolled, hair fighting gravity as always.  

“Morning, partner,” he called.  

“Still denying it’s a date?” she said.  

“Field research, remember?”  

“Fine. I brought edible evidence.”

She placed the crate on his table. The cat followed behind like a late guest, tail high, eyes suspicious of seagulls. Aiden grinned. “Our publicist has arrived.”

The fair began slowly. Vendors unfolded their tables of ceramics, paintings, and jewelry; street musicians tested notes that wandered like gulls. Children darted between stalls. The light shimmered off the water, the kind of shimmer that made everything look temporary and precious.

Aiden pinned sketches onto a corkboard—faces, streets, cups, hands. In the center, he placed the recovered drawing: Mira at the counter, torch in hand, flame frozen midair. He stepped back, squinting.  

“You sure?” she asked.  

“It belongs here,” he said.  

“People will know it’s me.”  

“Maybe. Maybe they’ll see themselves.”  

Carlo arrived carrying a thermos the size of ambition. “My contribution,” he said. “Caffeine diplomacy.”  

“Bless you,” Mira said.  

He winked. “If anyone asks for autographs, charge double.”

By ten, the harbor swelled with people. Aiden spoke to visitors in his gentle, distracted rhythm; Mira served pastries from a side table Carlo had insisted she bring. The cat held court under the chair, accepting tributes of crumbs.  

A woman paused before the central sketch. “That’s beautiful,” she said. “You can feel the heat of the fire.”  

Aiden nodded. “That’s the idea.”  

“Who is she?”  

He hesitated. “Someone who notices.”  

Mira nearly burned a croissant hearing it.

At noon, a gust of wind turned the awning into theater. One of the clips snapped; papers flew like startled birds. Mira lunged for the sketches, catching three midair. Aiden grabbed the pole, laughter and panic colliding.  

“Hold it!” he shouted.  

“I am holding it!”  

“Not the cat!”  

“It’s sitting on the bag!”  

“Priorities, Mira!”  

“Art before tyrant!”  

The cat, unimpressed, leapt onto the table. A volunteer helped secure the awning while Carlo cheered like it was a sporting event. When calm returned, half the fair applauded. Mira bowed sarcastically; Aiden joined her.  

“You realize,” he said, “we just debuted as performance artists.”  

“Unpaid performance artists.”  

“Exposure is priceless.”  

“You keep saying that. One day I’ll invoice you.”  

After the crowd thinned for lunch, they sat behind the booth, sharing bottled water and leftover pastries. The air tasted like sun-warmed metal.  

“You handled chaos well,” he said.  

“I bake for a living. Fire is part of the job.”  

“True. You looked—” He stopped.  

“Like what?”  

“Focused. Alive.”  

“Was that almost a compliment?”  

“Entirely.”  

She smirked. “You’re improving.”

He wiped sugar from his hand onto a napkin. “Do you ever think about what happens after?”  

“After what?”  

“After people know us. The blog, the fair, all of it.”  

“I think I’ll still wake up, bake, and feed the cat.”  

“That’s reassuringly consistent.”  

“It’s survival.”  

“And me?”  

She hesitated. “You’ll paint the next thing. You always do.”  

“And you’ll write it.”  

“Maybe,” she said, quietly. “If it’s worth writing.”

They looked toward the harbor where gulls circled a fishing boat. Silence settled, not heavy but full.

In the afternoon, a journalist with a press badge stopped by. He introduced himself as from *Lumièra Weekly.*  

“Your work’s been circulating online,” he told Aiden. “Mind an interview?”  

“Depends on the question.”  

“Your blog’s collaboration intrigues us.”  

Mira blinked. “Our what?”  

“‘The Lovers’ Observation Diary.’ You post drawings now?”  

Aiden frowned. “I don’t post anything.”  

The journalist turned his tablet toward them. On the screen was a new post from her blog—dated that morning. A scan of the café drawing, captioned: *‘Every observation becomes mutual eventually.’*  

Mira froze. “I didn’t upload that.”  

“Someone did,” the man said cheerfully. “Would you like to comment?”  

Aiden’s jaw tightened. “No comment.”  

The journalist shrugged, left a card, and moved on.  

Mira stared at the screen. “It’s happening again.”  

“Another bot?”  

“No. The tone—it’s mine, but not.”  

Aiden leaned closer. “Someone’s copying your voice.”  

“That’s worse than theft. That’s mimicry.”  

“Then we respond differently this time.”  

“How?”  

“By writing louder.”  

“That’s not subtle.”  

“Neither are we.”

When the fair ended at sunset, the crowd thinned into silhouettes against orange water. Aiden packed carefully, as if folding the day itself. Mira stacked the empty trays, still thinking about the fake post, the echo of her own words used by someone else.  

Carlo waved from the truck. “See you tomorrow, poets!”  

“Bring silence,” Mira called back.  

“No promises!”  

They watched him leave, the cat perched between them like punctuation.  

“Someone out there thinks they know your voice,” Aiden said.  

“Then let them. I’ll just change the melody.”  

He smiled. “That’s how artists survive.”  

“That’s how people survive.”  

“Same thing.”  

She looked toward the sea where the last light fractured into ripples. “Maybe I’ll write about today.”  

“Title it ‘Not-a-Date: The Sequel.’”  

“Too long.”  

“True,” he said. “The story’s shorter when we’re in it.”  

They packed the last of the sketches. Before closing the folder, Aiden paused at the drawing of her with the torch.  

“Keep this,” he said.  

“It’s your work.”  

“It’s our observation.”  

She took it carefully, folded once, and smiled. “Then I’ll return it later. I always do.”  

Back home, the café was quiet except for the cat’s soft steps. She laid the sketch on the counter and opened her notebook beside it. The pen hesitated, then moved:

> *Observation #50 — To be seen among strangers is exposure. To be understood by one person is home.*

The ink dried under the faint salt smell of the sea, and outside, fireworks from the fair reflected against the café windows—brief, bright, and beautifully unrepeatable.