ELEVEN

Abby had never been a fan of cleaning before she had become a Germaphobe. She was actually kind of messy but never to the extent she was seeing at that moment. She had never seen a room in such a state. She couldn't even walk without stepping on something. And not only was the room messy but it also smelled horrible. There was a stench coming from Cain's side of the room. It smelled almost like food that had gone bad. She didn't know what kind of food but she was sure that the smell was coming from under the bed. She was going to have to check under there but first she needed to clean the area surrounding the bed or else she wasn't going to be able to even get to the actual bed.

Cain had mentioned members being on a diet but seeing all the food wrappers that were laying on the floor it surely didn't look like Abel was one of those members. She had seen a bunch of trash cans right outside so it wasn't like they didn't have anywhere to throw away the trash, most likely they were just lazy. She knew guys their age tended to be messy so she really shouldn't have been surprised that Adam wouldn't be an exception, especially since they usually had busy schedules. She remembered when she used to live with her two older brothers, they had been probably just as messy. It wasn't until they got married that they changed because their wives would scold them if they didn't clean up. She wondered if perhaps the members just needed a woman to scold them to get them to clean. She had thought that perhaps part of Joel's job as a leader would be scolding them and getting them to clean but perhaps he didn't really care much about cleanliness.

Abby had put all the trash in a big white plastic bag that she found laying around. But even though the area surrounding the bed was clear and she had vacuumed and sprayed the floor, there was no way she was going to kneel on the floor to get whatever was stinking up the room. She had to find some other way. The vacuum was too bulky and heavy otherwise she would have used it to reach whatever was under the bed. The only other way she could think of was to get on the bed and lay on her stomach, at least the bed was made and it looked clean. It was probably the only thing clean in the room.

With a hanger in hand, Abby tried to reach as many things as she possibly could from under the bed. From what she had seen, there had been mostly food wrappers although not as many as there had been under Abel's bed. She managed to get a few things out but there were still more things further back. Had there not been a wall right next to Cain's bed, she could have just laid down on the other side of the bed and tried to reach from there. Moving the bed was her only option. It was only a Twin size, she was sure that Cain's body would be able to manage moving a small bed.

Before moving the bed, she wiped both the headboard and the footboard just in case there were any germs on them. She had been wearing the gloves Cain had bought her but wiping things down had become like an instinct to her. She was even planning on wiping down the bed again once she moved it back since the gloves she was wearing had already touched many other things including trash. She didn't want to end up transferring any of those germs.

Just as she was lifting the bed to move it, Abel walked in. "What are you doing?" He looked at her and then at the bed.

"Are you trying to move the bed or something?"

"Uh...Yeah...I think there's rotten food under there because it smells bad."

"Yea. I've been smelling something bad but I wasn't sure if it was coming from under your bed. But it looks like you've cleaned. Why don't you just crawl under the bed to get whatever is under there?"

"I wasn't able to reach." Abby was sure she probably could with Cain's long arms so long as she was on the floor but not wanting to do that, she went with the excuse of not being able to reach.

"That's why I said to crawl under there." Abel rolled his eyes and got on the floor. Abby hoped he would take a shower after that or at least change clothes.

"Give me some light. I can't see." Abel had his head under the bed but it was too dark for him to see. Abby pulled out the cellphone from her jeans and tried to light him but she was standing too far away.

"Closer. You're not giving me much light from wherever you're standing right now." Abby knew that to light him better she would need to kneel on the ground. But kneeling on the ground was almost like laying on the ground which Abel was doing and that had been something she hadn't wanted to do to begin with. The only thing she could do was to get on the bed once again and light him from there.

"Dude. Was this crap really here for two whole weeks? Why did you leave sushi under your bed? No wonder it smelled bad." Pulling up his shirt to his nose, Abel grabbed a plate with gone bad leftover sushi. It was Cain's favorite food. He gave the plate to Abby and it was then that he noticed the gloves she was wearing.

"What's up with those gloves?"

"Uhhh...My mom gave them to me? She bought a pair for my dad but they were buy one get one free. She said they were good to use when cleaning so I thought I would just take better care of my hands?" Unsure if what she was saying was believable, her words came out rushed. They usually did whenever she was nervous. It was the only thing she had been able to come up with on the spot. She only hoped Abel believed her.

"Cool. Well they look nice I guess. Maybe I should get some too. We'll be having fan meetings soon and fans will be touching our hands during hi-touch so it'll be good if our hands look and feel nice by then."

"Hi-touch?" Of course she knew what hi-touch's were, she had just forgotten that she was going to have to do such things while she was Cain. She doubted all those fans washed their hands. And not only that but those fans went from member to member, spreading all the germs from one person to another. It was a continuous cycle of germs. Abby cringed at the thought.

"Can we bring hand sanitizer with us?" Knowing she couldn't wear gloves during such an event, having hand sanitizer around would probably be the only relief she would be able to have.

"I don't know. They've never told us we can't so I guess? Why would you want to bring hand sanitizer anyways?" She knew it was a weird question to ask. She could have just waited to ask Cain but the question had come out before she realized it.

"The Coronavirus...it hasn't been that long...I just wouldn't want any Ebenezer's getting sick. Don't you think it'll be a good idea to have some hand sanitizer around? Both for us and for the fans."

"Well I guess. You should bring it up with the manager and see what he says. I never knew you were so cautious though. I remember when the Coronavirus was still around you didn't even wear a mask half the time you went out." It had been something Abby had known about as she had seen photos taken of Cain during the pandemic. He didn't always have a mask on in the photos. Something Abby always hoped for as a fan was that her favorite idols took good care of themselves but knowing that her bias had been taking such risks had worried her. She had even prayed for him each night just as she did for the rest of the members in Adam.

"Will you be going to practice with us?" Abel looked down at her ankle brace as he asked this. He had put on some sneakers and a hat and it looked like he was ready to head out.

"Uhm...Well do I have to go?" She thought that since he asked then perhaps that meant she had the option to stay.

"Well EVE did want you back at the dorms and at practice but since it's your first day back at the dorms, the manager managed to convince him to let you rest for at least another day. You will have to go tomorrow though. You may be able to skip out on dance practice for some days since you have that ankle brace on but you will still have to start practicing your rap since we're going to start recording some new songs soon." Abby thought she sucked at both but at least she felt a better at rapping than dancing, especially since she had improved a bit thanks to Cain's help.

Abby had been able to see when the two vans arrived since the room Cain and Abel shared faced the front. She had been worried about having to share a van with 8 other people, including the manager. But Cain had told her that they used two vans and that had made her feel a bit relieved. She would much rather not have to ride in a car with anyone but at least riding with four other people was better than eight. She only hoped the vans got cleaned regularly. The van's were the company's after all so it only made sense if they were maintained clean, at least that had been something she kept telling herself in order to make herself feel better. Because if she didn't try to think that way, getting on one of those vans was going to be impossible for her.

Now that she had the whole place to herself there was no better time to clean. The first place she went to clean was the bathroom since she thought it would be the dirtiest considering how 8 guys shared it. She hadn't believed it when Cain told her they only had one bathroom. She could only imagine the chaos there was each morning. Growing up she had been used to living with other people since she had a big family, it was her parents, three siblings, three nephews and herself. She had pretty much lived with the same amount of people that she was going to have to live with now. But at least at her house they had three bathrooms and even then she remembered how she would always fight with her brothers and nephews just to use them. It always seemed like all three bathrooms were occupied and almost all the time whoever got in there before left them smelling all stinky.

Even though the guys didn't have as many cleaning supplies as she had at her apartment, they at least had the basics to be able to clean. She had no idea how they would react once they saw the whole place looking clean. Cain hadn't told her if he usually cleaned around the dorms but she hoped it wouldn't seem like odd behavior for him. He had been helping her out with chores at her apartment the whole two weeks so she thought perhaps he also did the same at his dorms. One thing she knew though was that she still had to make it look like the place wasn't perfectly cleaned, she couldn't make it look too pristine otherwise it wouldn't look normal. Because of this she decided to keep a few things laying around even though she had already disinfected them.

By the time she finished cleaning she was both hungry and sweaty. She knew which one was more of a priority though and she went straight to the shower. And just like she had been doing for the past two weeks, she was careful not to see where she shouldn't. It wasn't that she didn't want to but she wanted to respect the person whose body she possessed just like she wanted her own body to be respected.

Abby had lost track of time that she hadn't noticed how long she had been in the shower. But she realized she must have been in there too long as she had started hearing voices and footsteps going in. She thought that perhaps the guys had been done early as it hadn't really seemed like it had been that long since they had left, either that or she spent more time cleaning than she had thought. The worst part was that she hadn't even eaten yet. The only thing she had eaten earlier was the sandwich she had brought with her and a granola bar but that had been earlier in the day.

She knew the guys would only find it weird if Cain were to start cooking all of a sudden so making herself something to eat now that the guys were there was not going to be possible. There was no way she could go to bed without having eaten though. She only had one option, her mom. She was going to have to go to her parents restaurant. She wasn't going to be going as her mom's daughter though but as her daughter's friend, her Agoraphobic Germophobic friend. At least that way she hoped her mom would know to wash the ingredients with antibacterial soap and hot water just like she did with her own Agoraphobic Germophobic daughter's food.

Abby checked the time and saw that it was a quarter past 6, it meant that she could still go out. But there was one thing she didn't like and that was that around that time the restaurant started getting more customers. She had gone to her parents restaurant around the same time before she was even a Germaphobe, it had been one of the first places she went as part of her exposure therapy. But at the time there had been too many people for her Agoraphobia to handle and she had a panic attack. And ever since then she had not been able to go back to her parents restaurant. Abby had already taken two of her pills earlier that day and she didn't think she could take another.

She sat on Cain's bed for a good 15 minutes just imagining all the worst case scenarios. Her psychologist had warned her not to do that because it would only make going out harder for her but she couldn't help it at times. There were just so many things that could go wrong. But thinking about all the things that could go wrong wasn't going to do her any good and it certainly wasn't going to get her any food either. She was hungry and she was craving her mom's delicious enchiladas and chiles rellenos. Her mouth was watering just thinking about them. That food she wanted so badly was going to have to be her motivation.

Since she had the tendency to always think up worst case scenarios, one of the things she worked on with her psychologist was thinking up best case scenarios. She was going to have to do the opposite of what she had been doing if she wanted to eat. Closing her eyes just like her psychologist had taught her to do, she tried to visualize herself at her parents restaurant. Walking in, ordering her food, waiting for it as she sat...She couldn't. Not sitting on those dirty disgusting tables that a bunch of people ate on. Her Germaphobia was ruining the visualization for her and it was starting to have the opposite effect she wanted.

Abby gave up on the visualization and opened her eyes. Her stomach growled just then. She didn't want to do what she was going to do next but she was going to have to. Another thing her psychologist had told her was to just not give herself enough time to think about things and just do them. If she needed to go out then she should just go out without even thinking about it. That way if she didn't give herself enough time to think, she wouldn't be able to come up with any worst case scenarios. She realized that she should have just done that from the start but she was always one to overthink everything so it was hard for her to just not think of things.

"Where are you going?" Abel walked into the room at the same time she was going out. They almost ended up bumping into each other but Abby evaded him like The Matrix.

"I'm meeting up with a friend." She felt bad for lying but she also didn't want him to end up going with her, not when there was a chance of her getting a panic attack.

Abby took the bottle of hairspray with her along with the few disinfectant wipes she had left. She put them in her backpack along with a bunch of napkins she had gotten from the dorm's kitchen. She had to use some of the napkins just to open the taxi door. Then she used a disinfectant wipe to clean the backseat and placed some napkins on top so that she could sit down. The taxi driver had seemed impatient as she did all this but he had already started the meter so it wasn't like he had anything to complain about. The longer she took cleaning, the more money he was going to make in the end.

She was lucky that her parents restaurant wasn't far, it was probably just as far as her apartment was but in the opposite direction. She paid the driver but with her card instead of with cash. She had stopped using cash ever since the Coronavirus since she had heard the virus could live on money. At least there were less chances of there being germs on her card but she hated having to enter a pin on a keypad that many others had touched so she had to buy a stylus just for that purpose. Although she hadn't really gotten around to using that stylus since her mom had been the one doing all the shopping for her.

As soon as she grabbed her card back from the taxi driver, she wiped it with a disinfectant wipe. The taxi driver rolled his eyes as he saw her do this. She was still wearing the gloves Cain had given her. She had ended up washing them and drying them with a hairdryer since it was much faster to dry that way instead of having to leave them out. She had also noticed that there were masks at the dorms and she grabbed one. It wasn't an odd thing for idols to have them since they sometimes wore them when they went out.

The taxi driver had to leave her across the street as there had been cars all around the curbside of the restaurant. But even from afar she was able to see how full the place was and she felt a sudden urge to turn back, to flee. Her heart had already started beating fast, almost as if she had been running a marathon but she hadn't, she had been merely standing. She had to take deep breaths. She knew she was going to have to face much worse sooner or later now that she was Cain and it was better to try to get used to being out in crowded places before then. She was going to have to do this for him. She was going to have to try and face her fears and keep in mind that it would all go away in a few minutes. Once her body started to relax then so would her mind and so would her heart. All the symptoms and the terrible feelings she was feeling at that moment would all be gone in just a few minutes. She had nothing to fear and she had to remember that.

Her vision had started to distort as she started crossing the street. She was sweating and out of breath, not only did she feel as if she had run a marathon but she almost looked like it too. She had finally gotten to the front of the restaurant but she had to try to calm herself yet a second time and try to build up courage just to open the door. With a bunch of napkins in hand, she slowly approached the door handle and grabbed onto it. Once she had finally pulled the door open, she threw away the napkins in a trash can nearby. Abby only hoped as she walked into the restaurant that some of her cleaning habits had rubbed off on her mom and that she at least kept the place cleaner than other restaurants.

The first thing she noticed once she was inside was her dad who was at the cash register. A customer was handing him cash and her dad wasn't wearing any gloves. She felt like running all the way there just to snatch the money away before her dad grabbed onto it but she knew she couldn't. She wasn't his daughter at that moment but just another customer, a stranger. Her dad didn't even know her as his daughter's friend. She had however already told her mom many times that they shouldn't accept cash and only take credit cards but it seemed like she hadn't listened to her. Abby looked around the restaurant trying to look for her mom but as she did, she started feeling dizzy. There were too many people there yet instead of fleeing, she felt like she was stuck in place. She couldn't even move. She was literally frozen in fear. This didn't happen often but it did at times.

"Are you okay?" At hearing a familiar voice, Abby snapped out of her frozen state. It was her mom and she was in front of her. She hadn't realized it but at some point she had pulled down her own mask. She realized she must have taken it off as soon as she had started having difficulty breathing. And because she no longer had her mask on it seemed like her mom had recognized her, well technically not her but Cain.

"Are you here to meet Abby?"

She didn't know why her mom would ask such a thing. She hadn't been to her parents restaurant in a long time. She had no idea how to answer her question. So instead of answering, she remained silent.

"It's her dad's birthday and we were going to eat the cake that I made him. Will you like to join us?" Abby looked at the calendar on the wall and saw that it was indeed her dad's birthday. She couldn't believe she had forgotten all about it. Every year her mom baked her dad a cake for his birthday and they would eat it together with her parent's landlord who was also their friend. A friend that also happened to be a relative of Jun, the woman that raised him. Her mom had gotten along so well with his aunt that they had soon become fast friends and still were till that day. And despite having broken ties with Jun, his aunt had been nice enough to allow her parents to continue renting their apartment at a lower price just like they had first agreed on. Not only that but she was the one that convinced Jun to sell his apartment to her for a lower than market price. Neither she or her family were exactly poor but Jun's family was a lot better off when it came to money.

"Hyun—I mean Abby is here?" With Jun's aunt around it meant that Cain would at least not be required to speak Spanish but she wondered why he hadn't contacted her to tell her.

"You mean you didn't know? I thought she might have invited you here. Well never mind that, I'm inviting you now. I'm sure you'll much rather go to the back room where there's less people. Wouldn't you agree?" She couldn't agree more. She was willing to go anywhere so long as there weren't so many people around. She also wanted to see how Cain was holding up, perhaps he was feeling nervous having to be with people he barely knew and would feel better having her around.