In which the protagonist didn't have this

The date is 11th November 4032. It's 4 am and I launched that dating app I'd been working on for the last few years. Well, from whatever year the Interspecies Exchange Bill was passed. It seemed like a good idea at the time, except it seems in the years since there've been very few relationships between magical beings and ordinary folk. I fully expect this app to get no traction, like all the other apps that aren't Surprise Attack: Lightness Villains. You've probably heard of it, it's on every sponsored MeTube video. Anyway, it's time for bed.

I woke up to my phone vibrating violently, it seemed like a faulty, ahum, how do I word this, women's toy. Oh crap! I slept in a whole day, and woke up at 11:58 am the day after! I tried to look at my phone's notifications, but my eyes were so bleary from having so much sleep. Even if the screen didn't hurt my head to look at, I wouldn't be able to make anything out asides from the time and date. I just left it to do its thing whilst I made coffee, though not before I put it somewhere cushioned; I can't really afford a new phone if it were to just vibrate straight off the end of something and onto the floor.

Coffee? Check! The will to get on with the day? Not really. I fully expect the notifications to be from the one guy friend (and my only real friend), Tetsuya, who knows that I've been working on the app, just to make fun of how much of a flop the launch was. I'd left an announcement on the server I'd made for it on Accord, which was just me and him. I used him as a sounding board, mostly because he frequently used dating apps, whereas I did not. As suspected, the notifications were all from him. What was he spamming me with now? Had an episode of anime slipped under my radar and it was far too epic for his comprehension? Well, whatever it was, all the messages he was spamming me with were all on the server I had to keep track of my app. Upon closer inspection, these notifications were all links to Seenitt posts. I had to sit down again from my sitting position once I realized what was going on. I started to laugh. What kind of god was letting this joke of an app become so popular? I clicked through the links, and the one that caught my eye was the server status thread someone had made. Apparently, it had gone down multiple times because of the traction. I'll fix that later. I curiously made a fake account, not wanting to accidentally updoot, downdoot or comment on my soon-to-be identifying real account.

I must've spent nearly an hour scrolling through these threads, as 1 pm rolled around Tetsuya sent a barrage of multiple texts to check the news. "Check the news," "I know you're not checking," "Just open it up on your laptop," "C'mon man, you have to see it." It was kind of amusing to see him trying so hard. Fine Tetsuya. I give in. I could feel a grin creep across my face at the fake defeat I was feigning. I sat down at my laptop and loaded up the news website and lo and behold, somehow, according to the news presenter, my dating app had taken the country, no, the world, by storm! As soon as she said the words "And this is the person behind it", I cringed. I knew it would be bad. I just didn't know what picture they were going to put up, and where from. How did the news know where to find a photo of ME? Well, it was a picture of myself I'd completely forgotten that I'd uploaded to the apps Chitter page (at one time, I had tried to get some traction, but I was pretty much a nobody). I never was photogenic. That's when I clicked the "X" tab. I didn't really want to sit here looking at my own face being broadcast to, the very least, the country.

I'd check Chitter later. And maybe even delete that photo.

I loaded up Accord and called my friend. I needed some more perspective on this.

"Hey bro!," he responded. He had that grin on his face. I don't quite know why, I never thought he'd really been rooting for me. After all, this was just an app I worked on in my spare time, sure, I was serious at first, but that disappeared with the hopes and dreams of being rid of my singledom. Maybe he just finds this whole situation amusing?

"How?" is all I could find myself utterly. It was all too much for my brain to handle.

"Well, you know how it is. There are lots of ordinary menfolk who have folders full of monster women on their PCs," he winked and carried on, "and the same goes for monster men with ordinary womenfolk."

"But how would women?" I paused, trying to convey my words "I get that side of it, but surely then the app would just be filled with men?"

"All it takes is for one woman to come across it on Chitter, download it and casually mention it to their girlfriends, then they're all downloading it." It makes sense.

"But it went live early on a Thursday morning?," I got his logic, but it's only been out for 32 hours.

"They probably checked it on their way to work? You know, that thing people go to? Then talk about it in the staffroom."

Ouch, that was a dig I did not need. I had struggled to find a job for a while, so I freelanced to be able to pay my rent.

"Got it," I replied, trying not to let the little bit of hurt in my voice go across the mic.

"Have you even checked Chitter?" he tried to be tactful.

"No, should I?"

I already had made the guess that they'd be some tweets about it, given the news, but the Chitter page I had made was so half-assed, that even if the news lady or whoever put together those reports found it, it wouldn't have spiked that much in popularity. I could tell he could hear the clicking of my laptop keys as I typed in my account details, his intake of breath was all but unnoticeable. I could see why he was waiting with bated breath. The hashtag #magihumedate was trending, a hashtag that could only be related to my dating app. I'd never been trending before in my life. Heck, I wasn't even on-trend. I spent most of my time in old, oversized t-shirts my elder brothers had thrown at me and comfy, plaid pants. Tetsuya had tried to convince me once they were lounge pants, only to wear indoors, but I saw no reason why I couldn't wear them outside.

"Did you set all of this up?" I asked, half-seriously. There's no way this could've happened. And not over the course of just under a day and a half.

"Nope. Not one bit, but I did make an account on your app. And matched with a few monster girls." Great. So this was the reality.

"I think" I paused, actually thinking about what to do next. "I'm going to read through all these threads and tweets and get my head around my newfound "popularity"."

"Good plan boss, let me know if you need anything." With that, we ended the call.

I spent the rest of the afternoon, and the evening, and part of the following morning, doing exactly what I said I would do. A recurring theme that popped up was along the lines of "but how does this dating thing work?." How the hell was I supposed to know? I could see my app sinking fast if we didn't fix this problem. It was a huge problem! The problem I'd been trying to deal with since puberty! It made sense. Ordinary folk and monsters got along, sure, but ordinary folk were awkward enough dating other ordinary folks. I'd just made a platform for them to get started.