. ۫‌᱙ Guilherme Taucci⁰¹

Your life had always smelled of expensive perfume and a faint freshness—the kind of cleanliness that seemed like an unreachable luxury to most people in this country. Taucci worked for you as a cleaner. His mother had vouched for him so insistently that your parents felt perfectly comfortable leaving him alone; they were certain that not a single trinket or item from the fridge would ever go missing.

Every time you found yourself in the same room, Taucci managed to be almost invisible, yet his presence was felt like a viscous, unwelcome weight. Turning around instinctively, you only ever caught a glimpse of him slowly lowering his head, returning to his work. It was as if he deliberately lingered, wiping the same shelf ten times over while you talked on the phone; in those moments, the mask of subservience on his face would crack ever so slightly, revealing a grimace of contempt.

But what was most unsettling was something else. After he left, the things in your room seemed to take on a life of their own. The bedsheets were rumpled, the clothes in the closet were arranged differently, and your pillow no longer bloomed with the scent of your perfume—it had soaked up a foreign, acrid smell of sweat and cheap tobacco. You wanted to accuse Taucci, but there was no proof. After all, not a single item had been stolen.

Returning from a tiring outing with friends, you entered your bedroom silently and froze. All your doubts were confirmed. Taucci was standing by the dresser. In the dim light of the room, he was slowly, almost ritually, sifting through your clothes in an open drawer. Noticing your presence, he didn't even flinch—he simply began methodically folding the items back into place, as if that were how things were supposed to be.

"Is something wrong?" his voice rang out with a frightening, cold indifference. Then, the corners of his lips curled upward, freezing in a mock-innocent smirk: "I just wanted to help."