Do Not Push
His amethyst eyes, looking out from behind similarly colored bangs, read the sign again, and it didn't change. And so the tall, lean teen stared at the sign until his gaze wandered to the large, red button and screen below it. And he smirked.
Sure, the sign said Do Not Push in big, bold lettering, but what if it meant the wall? Maybe it meant the screen? And even if it was referring to the button, why shouldn't he push it, huh?
It was begging him to disobey. It was a challenge. And everyone knows, the Great Phantom Thief absolutely could not pass up a challenge. What would people say if he lost a dare to a button?
He looked around to note that besides the fan girls that had stopped to stare at him, no one else was watching, and the fan girls would never tell on him.
And so, with a final chuckle and a devious smirk, he pressed the button. "Push." Instantly, an automated voice came from no where and numbers appeared on the screen, counting down.
"Ha! Now look what you've done!" The female's voice had an insane tone. 59, 58, 57... "You've gone and pressed the Blow Up the World button. How very stupid of you. When the clock hits 0, the world will go "boom!" and you'll be no more. Have fun for the last … 45 seconds of your life! Maybe this will teach you not to defy authority." The voice cackled, and then was suddenly kind and polite. "Have a nice day."
Dark's expression summed up to "WTF!" as he stared at the machine as the seconds slowly counted down. 33, 32, 31 ... His mind returned to him suddenly and a look that could be translated as "Oh shit!" overcame his features. Was this thing serious! Was the world really going to blow up in 26 seconds?
And what was this about respecting authority? He was the Great Dark Mousy! He respected no authority… Minus Emiko, but she was scary. He contemplated on how she would react to this and how many painful ways he'd die if she was to find out.
Who would have known there was an actual Blow Up the World button? Much less that it'd be in a park in Azumano. Asking to be pushed, no less.
Deciding that if he somehow managed to survive, he'd get some Ritalin, he returned his gaze to the clock. 10, 9, 8 ...
Dark apologized inwardly to Daisuke, Emiko, Riku, Risa…
7, 6, 5 …
Menou, Akiko, Michisu…
4 …
Creepy Bastard--could he apologize to him? Yeah--, Krad--yeah, him, too--…
3 …
Daisuke's English teacher, Daisuke's Math teacher, Daisuke's science teacher--no, wait. He didn't like him--Daisuke's (pretty) Japanese teacher…
2...
They guy over there, the pretty girl holding his hand…
1...
The mail man…
Flash! Dark blinked and almost swore that the sound of the world ending resembled that of a camera shutter and looked down.
"…"
Lo and behold, there was an instant photo of him, with the "Oh shit!" expression, looking zoned out. All in all, he didn't like it. It made him look unintelligent and wasn't of very good quality. Over all, was the message below the image.
"Sucker." He read aloud, glaring at the photograph, the machine, and the photograph again. Everything was the way he found it originally. But not for long.
A minute later, his world-destroying adventure completed, he stalked away, muttering darkly under his breath about psychotic machines and bad photos. The machine was graced with sharpie markings that insulted the machine's maker's mother's mother several times over with a small picture of Dark laughing.