The city of Lumièra woke slowly, reluctant to shake off its dreams. Trams hummed down narrow streets, brushing past balconies strung with drying laundry and cats half-asleep in the sun. A salty breeze rolled in from the harbor, carrying the scent of caramel and espresso from Café Lumièra—a quiet corner where mornings began before the rest of the city remembered to open its eyes.

Mira Solen was already at work, tying her hair into its habitual loose bun. Her hands moved with the practiced rhythm of someone who trusted flour more than people. She believed every morning required rules—not out of control but out of survival, because chaos had always found her first.

Rule One: No music before the oven warms.  

Rule Two: Never check messages until the first tart crust rises.  

Rule Three: Remember that sugar burns faster when you’re thinking of someone.  

Today, the third rule was dangerously close to breaking.

She glanced toward the window seat, her “observation point.” From there, she could see the street, the tram stop, and—if she leaned just enough—the building across the café. On the top floor lived a man who always appeared ten minutes late to everything, carrying a sketchbook too big for his bag. He had a distracted kind of charm that irritated her precisely because it was effortless.

He was, according to her notes, *The Ten-Minute Man.*

Mira didn’t know his name. She didn’t need to. He arrived every morning after her first batch of croissants came out, sat by the wall, ordered a latte, drew something, and left a tip that was always a coin and a folded napkin. Routine. Predictable. Safe to observe.

She took a sip of coffee and opened her small notebook—the one where she recorded what she called *micro moments of love.* Page 112 read:

> “A man waits with two coffees. One turns cold. Still, he smiles when she finally comes.”

That had been yesterday’s entry. Today’s page was blank except for a faint coffee ring that looked like an eclipse.

“Morning, Mira!”  

Carlo, the café owner, pushed through the swinging door from the front, carrying two crates of milk. His apron was stained with espresso dust and optimism.  

“You’ve been here since dawn again. You’ll scare the sun away.”

“It’s punctual. Unlike most people,” Mira said without looking up.

Carlo chuckled. “Including that sketchbook fellow? He’s back today. Saw him pass while I was setting the chairs.”

Mira’s spoon paused mid-stir. “So early?”

“He stopped to talk to the florist. Maybe love is in bloom, eh?” Carlo winked, amused by his own pun.

Mira ignored him, pretending to focus on the dough, but her heartbeat quietly synced with the tram bell outside—counting minutes.

At exactly 8:10, the door chimed.

He entered, as expected, ten minutes late. His hair was still damp from a shower, his shirt untucked beneath a gray-blue jacket that looked too worn to be careless and too deliberate to be accidental. He murmured a greeting to Carlo, then to Mira—though she wasn’t sure if it was to her or to the entire smell of the café.

“Latte, as usual?” Carlo called.  

“Yes, please,” the man replied, voice calm and low, the kind that spoke mostly to itself.

Mira arranged trays, pretending she wasn’t listening. Yet when he sat down, she noticed something different—he hadn’t brought his sketchbook. Instead, he was watching the window, same as her.

*Why does it bother me when the observed stops doing what I expect?*  

The question itched at the back of her mind like a sugar grain on the tongue.

She forced herself back to work, frosting the last batch of lemon cupcakes. The glaze caught the light, a mirror to her own uneasy reflection.

When Carlo went to answer a phone call, Mira slipped from behind the counter with a tray of samples. She didn’t plan to offer him one—she just needed to walk past, to test whether observation went both ways.

As she passed his table, he looked up. Their eyes met—half a second longer than polite.

“You changed the recipe,” he said.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The tart. Yesterday it was apricot. Today—lemon and rosemary.” He smiled faintly. “It smells sharper.”

Mira froze, tray in hand. “You... noticed?”

He nodded. “I draw scents sometimes. They change with light.”

That answer made no logical sense, yet somehow it felt like an intrusion. He wasn’t supposed to notice *her.* He was the subject, not the observer.

She muttered something resembling “thank you,” and hurried back behind the counter, cheeks burning hotter than the oven.

Later, when the morning rush had passed, she opened her notebook again.

> “Observation #37 — The subject noticed the observer. Hypothesis: discomfort equals exposure.”

She tapped her pen against the page. Maybe she should give him a name more specific than *Ten-Minute Man.* Maybe *The Man Who Draws Scents.* No—too poetic, too dangerous.

When she glanced up again, his seat was empty—only a folded napkin left behind.

On it, drawn in pencil, was a sketch of the café’s window: her silhouette blurred behind the glass, surrounded by drifting steam. At the bottom, in neat handwriting:

> “You look like someone who measures mornings in heartbeats.”

Mira stared at the note, unsure whether to laugh or panic.

Carlo appeared behind her shoulder. “Ah, love letters already?”

“It’s not—It’s just a napkin,” she protested, crumpling it quickly.

Carlo raised an eyebrow. “Sure, sure. Just don’t burn the next batch of tarts. Love makes bad timing.”

She sighed. “That’s why I have rules.”

He grinned. “Rules never stopped a good story, my dear.”

That night, after closing, Mira sat by the window seat with the lights off. The city outside was dim, full of quiet noises—footsteps, rain against glass, someone’s laughter from a nearby bar. She opened her notebook one last time under the glow of a single candle.

> “Observation #38 — Sometimes the heart recognizes its reflection before the mind admits it.”  

She paused, then wrote one more line:

> “Tomorrow, I will pretend not to look.”  

But even as she wrote it, she knew it was a lie.