Chapter Text
The soft chime of Aika’s phone broke the quiet of her studio apartment. She glanced at it
from her vanity, mid-way through applying her eyeliner. Her heart gave a small, excited jolt.
She knew that sound – one made immediately recognizable through movies and social media – and she knew what was awaiting her behind her lock screen.
SoulFinder Match Notification.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she set the brush down.
This was it.
The SoulFinder algorithm would find her perfect match—the one person meant for her. Not having to go through the archaic motions of traditional dating meant that she could spend more time worrying about important stuff, like hanging out with her friends and managing her clients. Aika didn’t doubt the system, and neither did three billion other users. SoulFinder never made mistakes, and it made sure your soulmate was the real deal.
She picked up her phone, staring at the notification. Her thumb hovered over the screen. She took a breath, then tapped it.
The app opened with its usual cheerful tones and pastel colors. At the top of the screen, bold text read:
Congratulations, Aika! Your soulmate has been found!
She felt a rush of anticipation, imagining her match: tall, handsome, probably someone successful. Maybe in finance or tech; wearing sharp suits, sporting a confident smile. More importantly, they’d be someone who could match her ambitions to be a star chef at a famous restaurant.
When she set up her profile, she listed out her three main priorities:
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They had to be wealthy (or at least good with money).
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They had to be interested in having kids.
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They had to be able to handle her personality.
Sending over her university transcripts and DNA sample cost extra, but SoulFinder said it would make the searching process much faster if she did. Being able to match based on a genetic profile made sense – this was the future, after all!
“All right, enough fussing,” said Aika to herself, “Let’s see what I got…”
She swiped to reveal the profile, and for a moment, her heart stopped. The photo of her soulmate was… not what she expected. It was a poorly lit, low-effort picture. A woman stood at an odd angle to show off her apartment room full of anime figures and posters. Poorly styled black hair hung messily around her face, looking like she had just rolled out of bed. Thick glasses covered her eyes, making it impossible to read her placid expression. On top of it all, an oversized anime T-shirt was stretched over her chest, riding up slightly to reveal a soft, pudgy stomach.
Aika blinked, thinking maybe she’d misread it. Maybe the app glitched.
But no.
The name was clear:
Kyoko Sato — Matched with Aika Tanaka
She felt cold. Scrolling down, she read more about this alleged match she had.
Age: 26
Pronouns: She/Her
Occupation: Unemployed
Interests: Anime, gaming, doujinshi
Personality: Introverted, forward-thinking
Additional Notes: Futanari
She opened the Detailed Bio page for Kyoko, her eyes scanning everything in the vain hope
that this was just a badly worded profile. But what she saw was correct — as correct a profile
about someone like her could be, anyway.
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Avid gamer, enjoys JRPGs, dating sims, extraction shooters, and indie games
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Prefers staying indoors, limited social interaction
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History of mild anxiety and agoraphobia
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Financially stable due to a personal injury lawsuit
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Comfortable with children
She swiped through the pictures SoulFinder had scraped from the Internet, hoping—praying—for a mistake. But every photo in Kyoko’s profile was worse than the last. A blurry selfie at a manga cafe, another at a local convention. Another shot of her messy-as-hell apartment, covered in piles of manga, questionable pin-ups, and junk food. One photo showed her wearing a headset, clearly mid-game, her mouth slightly open like she’d been caught mid-sentence. Her eyes were glazed over with that unfocused look people get when they’ve been staring at a screen too long. No matter how you looked at her, Kyoko was a plain, unattractive otaku of the highest order. And she was a futanari on top of it all.
Aika had never met one herself, but years of rumors, blogs, and social media accounts didn’t paint a favorable picture of them in her eyes. She was never prudish, but something about their alleged… overtness when it came to sex just rubbed her the wrong way. If this girl was anything like the others, she just got hitched to a nerdy pervert who could barely keep it in her pants.
“No,” Aika whispered, “This isn’t happening…”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be matched with someone attractive. Successful. Normal. Not with this… Otaku. Her mind raced, replaying every expectation she’d had. The future she’d imagined: dinner parties, vacations, maybe even a career boost from being with someone influential. All of it shattered in seconds. She’d instead be dragged to Comiket, forced to stand to the side as her wife ogled scantily-clad cosplayers or pored over racy doujins. They’d never go out for anything fancy; Kyoko would just eat cup noodles and convenience store food, and probably would be too picky to eat anything Aika cooked. And there’d be no way she’d meet anyone remotely influential. At least, not face-to-face. At best she’d probably meet some niche influencer for a product she’d never heard of.
BZZ BZZ BZZ!
Aika snapped back to reality as her phone buzzed again, this time with a new notification.
Kyoko has accepted the match. She’s excited to meet you!
Aika let out a strangled scream and threw her phone across the room. She stood up, pacing. She couldn’t sit still. Her thoughts were a mess. She stopped in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. All of her polished preparations now amounted to nothing, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Her phone buzzed again. With great reluctance, she went to where she threw her phone and picked it up.
New Message from Kyoko:
“Hi Aika! I’m really happy we got matched. Uh, sorry if this is awkward. I’m not great at this kind of thing. But, um… I hope we can get along!”
Aika stared at the message, her fingers tightening around the phone. What the hell is this?
She wanted to scream at her. To tell her she wasn’t interested. To ask what kind of sick joke
this was. Instead, her thumbs moved on their own.
“This has to be a mistake.”
She stared at the message for a long time before finally hitting send. Almost immediately, the typing indicator popped up, with Kyoko replying soon after:
“Oh. Um… I don’t think it is? SoulFinder is supposed to be 100% accurate, right? Haha… I guess we’re really meant to be!”
Aika felt her chest tighten. She wanted to throw the phone again, but she didn’t. She just stared at the screen, her jaw clenched, her eyes burning. Her future was supposed to be perfect. Instead, she got Kyoko Sato. Kyoko’s last message burned into her brain like a stain she couldn’t scrub off.
Meant to be.
The words echoed in her head, mocking her. She couldn’t sit still. She couldn’t think straight. The apartment felt too small, the walls pressing in. Grabbing her phone again, she opened her contacts with shaking fingers. There was one person she could talk to about this.
Mom.
The phone rang twice before her mother answered, her warm, familiar voice chirping through
the speaker.
“Aika-chan! Did you get your match? Oh, I’ve been dying to hear!”
Aika’s throat tightened. For a second, she almost couldn’t speak. But then the anger – and some tears – surged, hot and sharp.
“It’s a disaster!” she snapped, pacing the length of her spotless apartment. “I got matched with… with her!”
“Her?” her mother repeated, confused. “Wait, you mean they matched you with a woman?”
Aika barked out a bitter laugh. “Not just a woman. Some unwashed, lazy, basement-dwelling otaku! She looks like she hasn’t showered in weeks. She’s unemployed—well, technically rich from some lawsuit—but she’s a shut-in. All she does is play video games and whoknows what else. She’s just… UGH!”
Her mother was quiet for a moment, processing. Then she cleared her throat. “Well… that’s surprising. But, darling, SoulFinder’s algorithm—”
“Fuck the algorithm!” Aika shouted, her voice sharp enough to make her mother flinch on the other end. “They said it’s never wrong. Never! But look at this!”
She fumbled with her phone, realizing she couldn’t exactly show her mother over the call, so she did her best to send over a screenshot.
“She’s—she’s a futanari on top of it all, Mom. Do you even know what that means?”
Another pause. A faint sigh.
“Well… yes. But Aika, the algorithm doesn’t just consider appearances. It’s about compatibility. Emotional, psychological, genetic—”
“Oh, please!” Aika snapped, pacing faster. “I don’t need a psychological match. I need someone who isn’t a socially-inept freak!”
Her mother’s voice grew firmer. “Aika. That’s enough.”
Aika stopped mid-stride, seething. The silence on the line felt like a slap.
“I know this isn’t what you expected,” her mother continued gently, “but there’s a reason SoulFinder matched you. Maybe… maybe give her a chance? You know, your father and I had our differences–”
Aika ended the call without replying, her thumb jamming the button with more force than necessary.
Give her a chance. The words made her want to scream.
She wasn’t done venting. She scrolled to her group chat with all of the friends she’d kept since high school. Perfect girls with perfect lives. She needed validation. She needed them to tell her she wasn’t crazy.
Aika: You won’t believe this. SoulFinder matched me with some greasy otaku freak. Like, I’m not even kidding. She’s a FUTANARI on top of it all, too. What the hell should I do?
The responses came quickly.
Mari: Wait… what?! Are you serious?
Chika: WTF. They matched you with a girl?? Are you gay and just didn’t tell us?
Rina: Futa?? Like… with a dick??
Aika’s fingers flew across the screen, her rage pouring out in rapid-fire texts.
Aika: YES. And not even the hot kind. She’s gross. She looks like she hasn’t left her apartment in years. She’s unemployed, addicted to anime, and probably doesn’t even know what deodorant is.
Mari: OMG that’s insane. I thought SoulFinder was supposed to be perfect.
Chika: Yeah but… it’s never wrong, right? Maybe there’s more to it?
Rina: Honestly, that’s kinda hot tho…
Aika stared at Rina’s message in disbelief.
Aika: WTF Rina this isn’t one of your hentai doujins this is MY LIFE.
Rina: Sorry…
But despite her ranting, her friends didn’t give her the validation she craved.
Mari: I mean… maybe meet her? Just once?
Chika: Yeah. It can’t hurt, right? Plus, if it’s really that bad, you can always just… I don’t
know, figure something out.
Rina: Plus it could totally be a Princess and the Frog type of situation, y’know?
Mari: Ooh, that’s gotta be it! Is she loaded?
Aika felt like screaming. Why wasn’t anyone on her side? She didn’t reply. She tossed her phone onto the couch and sank to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. Her apartment, her sanctuary, felt suffocating. Too clean. Too quiet. For the next few days, she stewed in her frustration. She barely ate, scrolling mindlessly through her phone, re-reading Kyoko’s profile, trying to find something.
But there was nothing she could find that appealed to her. Endless posts about anime, her “waifus” which consisted of scantily-clad women in little more than underwear, and piles of greasy, cheap food that she apparently ate most of the time. She didn’t make any more moves, lest it upset whatever semblance of control Aika had left. Until, on the fifth day, her phone buzzed again with another message from her “soulmate”.
“Hey… I wasn’t sure if I should message you again. Sorry if I’m bothering you. I just wanted to know… what do you want to do? Should we meet up?”
Aika stared at the message, her jaw clenching and unclenching as she stared at each word
Kyoko sent to her. She wanted to ignore it. But a small, stubborn voice in the back of her head whispered—What if they’re right? What if this is some kind of test?
With a deep, shaky breath, she typed a reply, including an address for a café she liked.
"Fine. Let’s meet. Here’s a café we can meet at tomorrow."
For a moment, she hovered over the send button. She could just ignore her, delete her account now, and walk away. But, that would mean walking away from what everyone said was the “ideal” relationship. Did she really want to throw it all away before she even met Kyoko? No, she thought, I have to at least hear her out. With renewed determination, she finally hit send. Kyoko sent a smiley face emoji in response, sealing the deal. Aika sighed. Was this what she really wanted to do? Would this turn out the way she wanted?
She didn’t know. But, she couldn’t stand the alternative – having no one.