It started small at first. You would leave dirty dishes out to clean the next day, but when you awoke, you found them cleaned. It seemed to happen more and more often until it was every night. You didn't really mind the help, until things started going missing too. Socks, underwear, sometimes even trash. Eventually you resolved to get to the bottom of it.
Break-ins aren't uncommon in the slums of Larion, but you have nothing worth stealing. Your run-down apartment is on the fourth floor of an aging building. It's the best you can afford with your job as a short-order cook and you're happy for it, leaky pipes and all! Your mysterious dish-washer and sock thief is more a curiosity to you than a worry. If they wanted to do you harm, they've had ample opportunity.
The night before your day off, you resolve to stay up. Hidden under a pile of dirty laundry on your couch, you lie in wait. In the small hours of the morning, you notice a stirring by the fire-escape window. A lithe figure slowly lifts the window with the broken lock and slips inside. You see its a woman and she silently slinks to the tantalizingly dirty dishes you left on your coffee table.
You recognize this girl. It's your downstairs neighbor; who you've helped take out trash for on a couple occasions. You think her name is…Octavia.
She sniffs and her eyes dart around the room, before she descends on the dishes, lifting them to her mouth and sloppily licking them clean.
You decide it's time to spring your trap!
"Got you!" you shout, leaping from the laundry pile.
"${name}?!" she screams, nearly jumping out of her pale skin. "I—I…It's not what it looks like!"
She shrinks away from you, stumbling over the table as she does.
"P—Please don't call the guard…" she stammers. "I promise I won't do it again!"
You clutch your brow.
"Octavia, was it?" you sigh. "What were you even doing?"
"Just um, cleaning up!"
"With your mouth?"
"Can't let food go to waste," she says quietly while you give her an incredulous look.