Down The Rabbit Hole
As the group arrives at Ash’s dorm they notice that they aren’t alone here.
“...Uh…” Love blurts out. “Hey Takeru. What are you doing here?”
Takeru was sitting on Ash’s couch with a laptop in his lap with one headphone in.
“Hey babe. I didn’t know we were having people over today?”
Ash walks over to Takeru and gives him a kiss on the cheek.
“It’s okay. These two just need a place to crash for the next few days.”
Love is blushing.
“...So…so how long have you two been…”
Ash picks up where Love left off.
“Dating? For about a month now.”
Maka interrupts them now.
“Wait! How did we not know this?”
Ash and Takeru look at each other and shrug. Ash responds for the two of them.
“I guess you never asked.”
“Oh. Cool, cool.” Maka slowly trails off.
Takeru closes his laptop and puts it to the side. Ash proceeds to sit on his lap and wraps an arm around his shoulder.
Love sits on a chair across from them. She crosses her legs and waits patiently for an inevitable conversation.
Maka sits down at Ash’s workout bench and mindlessly picks up a weight and starts curling it.
Ash is the first person to speak.
“If any of you are hungry we have some snacks in the fridge.”
Takeru cuts him off.
“Just don’t eat anything that Ash cooks. He burns everything.” Takeru says snarkily Ash gives him an annoyed yet loving eye roll.
“You know that is how I like my food.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s okay to offer it to other people babe.”
Ash huffs. Takeru lets out a small laugh.
Ash turns back towards his guests.
“...As I was saying…snacks in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
The uncomfortable silence returns.
Maka puts down the weight, rubs the back of her neck, and turns towards Love.
“So…do you wanna talk about it?”
Love takes a deep breath.
“...Y…yeah…I probably should…”
The others wait patiently for Love to start.
“...When I slowly started to publicly transition whenever I would go to class I noticed Calder was starting to just….randomly stare at me…and I had no idea why that was…until today I guess…I just decided to confront him about this and then…well…you know what happened next…”
Takeru looks confused.
“Wait. I’m lost. What did Calder do?”
“...Well…um…” Love looks over at Maka. “...Please…”
Maka sighs, but picks up where Love left off.
“Calder is a transphobic piece of shit who decided to make his hatred somebody else’s problem. After he assaulted Love, me and Ash showed up and put that bigoted punk back in his place.”
Takeru turns towards Love now personally invested in what is going on and concerned if she is okay.
“Love, if there is anything me or Ash can do for you just ask us, okay?”
“...Thank you…and I will…”
Takeru thinks to himself for a moment. He reaches for his laptop. Ash gets out of his lap and sits besides his boyfriend on the couch. Takeru opens the device up and starts typing away on his keyboard.
“...Calder…Mc…Hail…” He quietly says as he types.
After a minute or so of clicking through different websites Takeru’s eyes light up.
“Hey guys. I think I found something that you might want to see.”
Love and Maka get up and walk over to where they can see what is on the screen of the laptop.
What they see disgusts and scares everyone in the room.
The webpage Takeru just opened up seems to be a cheaply made website. Imagine one of those personal websites that people would have made for themselves in the early 2000s before web domains started to become too expensive for the average person.
What was really concerning about the website was the article title at the top of the page and the image in the center of the page.
It appears to be a collection of pictures with Love and some sparse information about her as well.
The article title did have a name, but it wasn’t Love’s current name. It was still her deadname.
Love looks like she just saw a ghost.
“...What…what is this?”
Takeru sighs before explaining.
“This website appears to be a database for trans women.”
He clicks on the homepage button on the top right of the screen and proceeds to scroll through hundreds and hundreds of different names.
“...But…why…why would someone make this?”
Maka puts her arm around Love’s shoulder before Ash responds to her.
“I know this is hard to hear, but the world is not safe for people like you and me. Not currently at least. Calder and other assholes like him want us dead and this website seems to be a hitlist of sorts.”
Love has never felt this scared in her entire life, and for her that is saying a lot.
“...W…w…why? Why do people hate us so much?” Love is now sobbing. Maka wraps her in a tight hug and whispers sweet phrases of reassurance into her ears.
Ash thinks for a moment before responding.
“I have thought about this for quite a long time, but the answers are usually a lot more simple than you might think. It is usually things like how they were raised, what their parents taught them, what their religion told them to think. Some people just hate others because they are afraid of change, or are afraid that they will somehow become a minority themselves. As ridiculous as that sounds to any of us here, that is genuinely what some of these people think and is often how monsters are created.”
“...Is…is there anything we can do about it?” Love responds dreading whatever answer she is about to receive.
“There are things we can try to do. Fight back against hatred wherever you can, join local politics and be the positive change that you want to see in the world, maybe vote, but none of these are guaranteed to stop hatred. They can only push it back temporarily for the most part. The way I see it, if one day enough genuinely good people stand up against monsters like Calder the better our world will be, but most people don’t really know or care about what is happening to people like us. At the end of the day there is no answer. All we can do is fight what battles we can and hopefully if enough people join us things will hopefully be better one day. That day won’t be today, or tomorrow…Hell, maybe that day will never come, but as long as there are good people in the world willing to stand up and fight with us I will never lose hope. Without hope there is no fight, and if there is no fight that is admitting defeat, but I am never going to let that happen. As long as I live I will keep hope alive with me.”
Love takes a moment to let this all sink in. She had just come out to herself about a week ago and knew a little about how trans people were treated, but she never really knew it was this bad until now. Maka just continues to hold her as Love feels the weight of the world’s hatred start to push down on her shoulders.
Maka turns towards Takeru.
“Hey. Where did you find that website anyways?”
“On the Dark web. I searched for Calder on the surface web and couldn’t find anything, but I was able to find plenty of information down there.”
“...That…isn’t good…” Maka responds.
“No, no it is not.” Takeru scrolls through the site. “And now that his hatred is out in the world I wouldn’t be surprised if Calder decides to take this website down, or move it to a different domain, or something else, but I am going to save as much information as I can from it in the meantime. Just in case we need evidence.”
Love turns towards Ash to ask him something.
“...Since you said that I shouldn’t go back to my dorm for a while…do you guys have anywhere for me to sleep?”
“Sleep in my bed tonight.” Ash points towards a door right behind them. “Me and Take will sleep on the couch tonight.”
Takeru quickly responds to this.
“I didn’t agree to this.”
Ash gives Takeru a serious look and he backs down.
“Fine, we’ll take the couch I guess.”
“Thanks babe.”
Ash and Takeru stay up to investigate this website while Love goes to Ash’s bed to get some rest. Maka goes back to her own dorm room.
Before Love falls asleep completely, Ash comes to sit at the edge of his bed to talk to her.
“...Look…I know that today was really bad for you but…I want to make sure that you stay safe…” Ash takes a deep breath and looks towards Love. “I will try my best to be there for you and make sure something like this never happens to you again.”
Love doesn’t respond.
Ash places his hand onto her shoulder.
“...Just get some sleep…okay…” He said before walking back out of the room.
It takes a while for her mind to calm down, but Love is eventually able to go to sleep.