Jason's eyes snapped open. He groaned, rubbing the crick in his neck.
"What the hell?!"
The first thing he saw was… a tumbleweed. Just rolling lazily past his face like it had nothing better to do.
He squinted, rubbed his eyes, looked again. Yep. Still there. Rolling away like it owned the place.
"Where… am I?"
He sat up cross-legged, and when he finally took in the scenery, his jaw dropped.
"Desert? Sand dunes… and random dry grass patches?!"
It looked exactly like one of those old western movies his grandpa used to watch, except now he was inside one. And this felt way too real for comfort.
Far on the horizon, an orange sun crept upward, its light not quite touching him yet.
'Shit. That vampire.'
His hand flew to his neck. Two neat little puncture marks stared back at him. He winced at the sting and shook his head.
'Am I still dreaming?'
No fuzziness. No dizziness. No floating sensation. Which, annoyingly, meant… nope. Not a dream.
Jason dusted off his hands and stood—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three gunshots tore through the morning air behind him.
He immediately dove back to the ground like a discount action hero.
"Die, you sinful monster!!!" someone roared.
Jason didn't wait to find out who was yelling or what qualified as "sinful" in this desert. He scrambled across the sand like a lizard on way too much caffeine and ducked behind the nearest boulder.
'Shit! Shit! Shit!'
His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was trying to punch through his ribcage. Could you even feel your heart in a dream?
He scooped up a fistful of cold desert sand just to check… and instantly regretted it. It was rough, gritty, and painfully real. The grains slid between his fingers like tiny knives, confirming one terrible fact... this wasn't a dream.
Then a new sound cut through the silence.
Crunch.
Bone crunching. Wet. Sharp.
A second later, an unholy howl ripped through the air, silencing the man's shouting, followed by… nothing.
'What the fuck is going on?'
Every nerve in Jason's body screamed at him to stay hidden, to not even breathe too loud.
But his stupid neck was already craning backwords, and his chest was still pounding. Only now, there was something else mixed with the fear.
Curiosity.
'Can't do shit if I don't know jackshit about what's happening out there.'
Jason muttered a quick prayer and traced a shaky cross in the air. The orange rays of the rising sun were just about to spill over his hiding spot.
He took a breath, gripped the side of the rock, and peeked up.
Crack!
Bad move. A chunk of stone crumbled right under his fingers, the sound loud enough to drop his stomach straight into his shoes.
He ducked instantly—
But not before seeing it.
And worse… it saw him too.
'No way. No fucking way.'
Jason's hand shot to his chest like he was trying to stop it from exploding. Out there, in the middle of what looked like a ghost town, lay bodies. Dozens of them.
The insane part?
Cowboys. Every single one of them.
Even in that split-second glimpse, he'd caught the full Wild West cosplay—dusty hats, leather vests, bandanas, spurred boots. It was like someone had murdered an entire cowboy convention.
His heart hammered so hard it felt like it was ready to tear free, flip him off, and run away.
'Shit! Shit!'
His lips trembled, curling into a shaky grin despite his best efforts not to smile at all.
Shouldn't a guy be pissing himself right now?
Yeah,normal people would be bawling, praying, cursing, maybe trying to bargain with God while their underwear became a certified biohazard zone.
But not Jason. Oh no. Not him.
'W-was that… a vampire?'
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
'It was a vampire, right?'
What he'd seen was straight out of a fever dream. Naked, hunched, skin glistening like it couldn't decide if it was wet or rotting, nails so long they could legally be registered as swords.
And those fangs.
Oh yeah. Classic vampire starter pack.
Its eyes were two glowing red meatballs of pure rage, locked directly on him… even as it tore a cowboy in half like it was carving a Thanksgiving turkey.
It saw him.
Oh yeah, it definitely saw him.
Jason sucked in deep breaths, trying to calm the wildfire in his chest. But his lips… they were already stretched into a grin.
Something was coming from behind him. Heavy. Fast.
He didn't flinch. Didn't move.
Just sat there. Smiling.
A tiny laugh bubbled up his throat before he could stop it. He slapped a hand over his mouth to smother it, but it still leaked out.
'Don't laugh. Not yet. It's disrespectful to the monster.'
Jason bit his lip hard, but there was a reason his face kept twitching into a grin in the middle of this nightmare.
He'd been "diagnosed" a few years back. Not by a doctor, by the internet. A syndrome. Back home, everyone roasted him for it. Even his best buddy Alac had burned him so bad once that Jason learned to keep his mouth clamped shut whenever people were around.
He could've gone full villain over it, like that one anime kid who got so bullied he started wearing eyeliner and swore vengeance on humanity, but Jason decided nah. Why waste time?
But here? In this sun-baked hellhole that felt like a brand-new world? He didn't have to hold it back anymore.
And right now, his syndrome was flaring up. Hard.
"Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha."
Tears pricked his eyes as a rotten, skin-sloughing hand curled over the top of the rock.
Jason kept laughing until even the thing on the other side froze. It tilted its head, peeking down like it had to confirm it was hearing laughter… and not the usual begging for life.
"Hello there!"
Jason greeted cheerfully as the newly turned beast leaned over the rock.
One glance at it and most people would've fainted on the spot.
Jason wasn't worried. Not one bit.
He knew exactly where he was. This was the classic transmigration setup he'd read about a hundred times.
'And if my calculations are right…'
There were only two ways this ended:
One, he died because he acted like an idiot.
Two, he bet everything on the one sliver of a chance he was counting on.
His grin split wider. The laugh came harder.
The beast's growl deepened, teeth bared, breath hissing like steam. It reached down, long, rotten fingers stretching for the maniac still laughing in its face.
Jason shook his head and closed his eyes, not in surrender, but in anticipation. He was waiting. Waiting for the sweet lullaby of a monster in agony.
And then it came.
A howl. Long, piercing, so loud it rattled his bones, followed by a sudden wave of heat across his skin. Footsteps pounded away across the sand.
The maniac's gamble had paid off.
What's one thing vampires hate more than anything else?
Well, there's a whole list… but the one gift nature hands out for free is obvious.
Sunlight.
The first orange rays finally reached him.
That was why Jason had been so smug. If sunlight couldn't stop it, there was no point in running anyway.
The moment those rays kissed the vampire's outstretched hand, its skin hissed and blistered like meat on a grill.
Jason peeked over the rock just in time to see the beast bolt, like it had been personally roundhouse-kicked by God Himself.
'Hmm… it didn't die instantly. So I really am in that novel, huh?'
A grin crept onto his face… then split wide, spilling into a full-blown cackle. He slapped a hand over his face, threw his head back, and laughed like a madman.
"Finally! Ha ha ha! I can become…"
The "illness" our dear protagonist carried was one only true weebs and otakus could understand.
"This is my dream coming true…"
There was no medical cure.
"You see this, Alac?! You see this shit, Alac?!"
The only treatment was to develop some shame, something Jason had been born entirely without.
"I told you I'd become the one, didn't I?!"
The name of his glorious, incurable disease was, of course…
Chūnibyō.
Or, in simpler words, Middle School Syndrome.