2. Complicated
The vials lining the walls, the various dried and fresh samples of plants, fruits, nuts and even vegetables, the small flames, the bubbling liquids... all of it looked so beyond Annie that she couldn't help but marvel at the man before her.
He seemed to hum gently as he worked, but it may have just been the gentle simmer of the large beaker on his right. The sunlight caught on his tousled hair as he bent over the work before him, oblivious to the farmer who had just crept inside his front door, drawn by the sounds of someone inside despite the lack of response to her hesitant knock.
"Klaus," she said, so quiet that it sounded unnervingly breathless.
"Ahh," he muttered, apparently to acknowledge the presence of someone in his home. He turned away from the desk after a pause, his face brightening for a moment. "Annie. Hello."
She asked him about his preoccupation, having only now witnessed the perfumer at work for the first time.
"Hm? What am I doing? I'm mixing a fragrance," was all that he said with such a slight and casual shrug of his shoulders that Annie had to balk.
All of this... this complicated network of tasks and substances and steps... for a fragrance?
"Is this for... an order?" Annie said curiously. To be quite honest, she was not sure how any of this worked. She had never really considered where the perfumes and tonics that dotted fancy shops came from, but she certainly had not pictured it being here – in front of her, in a dim and beautiful house within a small and bountiful town.
"No, this one is not for my work. It's also a hobby of mine."
"Should I come back another time?" Annie began, taking a step back to leave.
He seemed so absorbed, so at peace as his hands worked with the glass containers and tinted fluids that she hated to suddenly impose.
"Oh, don't worry. You aren't disturbing me in the least," Klaus assured her with a gentle smile. "Ah, I know! Since you were kind enough to pay me a visit today... What if I mix a special fragrance just for you, the busy farmer who spends all day every day bustling about the farm?"
He laughed softly at her surprised blush and hesitant nod. When would she ever again have a fragrance specially crafted for her right from the source?
The gentleman begged her to take a seat just off to the side as he finished up.
"It will just be a moment or two longer," he said with that slight drawl of his that was neither entirely country – like the slight accent of most of the Oak Tree Town residents - but also not quite city - like the undertones in Marian, Fritz, or Giorgio's tones.
Annie watched enraptured as Klaus worked. None of it made sense to her, but it was beautiful in its complication nonetheless.