Disclaimer: I don't own it. I swear. If I did, would I be here? No, I wouldn't. I'd be writing the next chapter.

Warnings: Um...Mukuro being himself

Here's chapter 2, like I promised. It's longer than chapter 1! Yes! I hope you like it. As always, please review! I value your opinions. Really, I do.

OMG! 6 reviews? You guys are absolutely awesome! I love you all. And if you read it and didn't review...thanks! A review would be nice, but I don't want to demand it, and I know you're probably all very busy, or too lazy, which I can understand (I'm too lazy to review most of the time too, which I should probably change. I'm such a hypocrite!). Anyways, on to responses.

dotYui: Your review was awesome too! Cookies for being first to review! Thanks so much. Chapter 3 is on its way!

Allen Walker the Crowned Clown: First of all, I love your name. I love Allen too. Maybe I'll do a fic about him when (and if) I finish this one. Hm... Besides that though, thank you!

-JenniClouds: You really think it's a good start? I love you. All my character ideas just kind of just come to me as I write so I'm glad you like them. As for Yamamoto, I feel bad for him too. But he was the only one I could think of that would ever be friends with Hibari. Can you imagine him being good friends with Gokudera or Ryohei? *shudders* Don't worry though, things get better for Yamamoto later. I love Hibird too. Thanks for the review!

Kajune: I'm glad you like this story! And about the heart eating thing...no comment. Just kidding. ^^ You're addicted too? Awesome! I'm not the only one! I loved reading your review. Thanks for the offer. I might just take you up on that some time. You're awesome.

Miru-choco-ai: I'm working hard on the next chapter! You really like it? Thanks a million. Love you too, darling!

Takahashi Reina: Hibird is awesome. He's so cute! You think it's interesting now? Just you wait. *insert evil laugh* Thanks!

Phew. Glad I got that out of the way. I don't know if I'll respond individually every chapter, but I'll definitely try! Geez, that took up an entire page! I should probably stop now. Remember, I love you all!

Love's Many Risks

Chapter 2: First Meeting

Love can be a scary thing. It makes us become something different from what we are. When you fall in love, it's like giving part of your heart away. It's offering that part of you to another, and hoping they don't break it. It gives someone power over you. Love makes people do crazy things. So, even knowing all this, why do humans still fall in love?

Simple: because despite all these things, love can also be the sweetest feeling in the world. It makes you feel euphoric, and light, and happy. It's about taking risks. Yes, that's what it is. Love is a risk.

* * *

"Did you hear?" the girl sitting next to Hibari asked her friend. "A new student's coming today!"

"Really? No way!" the other exclaimed.

"I'm serious. He's supposed to be unbelievably hot too!"

"You're kidding!"

"No, I'm not! Aki saw the homeroom teacher talking to him. She was swooning when she walked in! She said he looks like a model! I can't wait!"

Both girls squealed loudly, excited at the prospect of a hot new student. Hibari fought the urge to cover his ears. It's not like he'd been eavesdropping. The girls were just so loud, and so annoying that they would have been hard to ignore from the damn hallway! Stupid girls.

Why did they care if a new student was coming? It was just another kid to add to the ever-changing mix of kids that already attended Namimori High. One person wouldn't change anything. The moronic females didn't even know the guy. How could they possibly be so excited? It just wasn't fathomable, so the teen promptly dropped all thoughts on the subject. Much better.

He returned to watching the sakura through the window, just as he had been doing yesterday before that whole thing with Yamamoto. The boy sighed inwardly, though on the outside he maintained his usual cold, indifferent face. He still didn't know what made him uncomfortable around them. It was beginning to really aggravate him. Maybe he just didn't like people in general. Was that possible?

...No, that probably wasn't the problem. At least, he hoped that wasn't what it was. That would just be weird. This was so annoying! It was driving him crazy! Had he been anyone else, he may have started hitting his head against his desk. But, being Hibari, he simply sighed lightly, and turned his attention to the teacher, who had started talking while his mind had been elsewhere. He decided that too much time for thinking was definitely a bad thing. That's what he blamed for his strange thoughts lately.

"He is transferring from Kyoto, and shall be attending school here from now on," Hibari heard his teacher say. The annoying girl from before had been right. It looked like they were getting a new student today. The teacher turned away from the class, and called to someone, presumably the new student, standing outside. "You may come in now, Rokudo-san."

The door slid open, and a boy stepped in. The girls (and a few boys) in the class gave a very audible gasp. Hibari only raised an eyebrow. The girl's friend, Aki, hadn't been wrong about how the student looked. He probably could be a model. Straight navy hair framed the boy's handsome face, peaking into a few bunched spikes at the back of his head. It actually looked remarkably like the top of a pineapple, but that didn't seem to bother the girls in the least. He was taller than Hibari, and slightly more muscular, but he was still fairly slender for a boy. His perfect skin was pale. The eyes were his most distinctive feature though. One was clear, blue, a perfectly normal. The other was a bright scarlet color, the kind of color you'd expect to see in a sunset, not in the eye of a human. The eyes contrasted sharply, but at the same time, seemed to somehow fit together. They roamed the room briefly before landing on Hibari, a mischievous light glinting in their depths. The other boy, however, took no notice of this, as he'd gone back to staring out the window once he'd gotten a good look at the new student.

"Hello, everyone," the new student said in a soft voice, momentarily tearing his gaze away from Hibari to address the whole class. "My name is Rokudo Mukuro. It's nice to meet you all. Please take good care of me this year." he finished. He knew the entire thing by heart, having already said it god knows how many times in various other schools. Every time he finished an assignment, he left the school immediately, vanishing without a trace. He changed his name every few schools. This time it was Rokudo Mukuro. Two assignments ago, it had been Abarai Murasaki. He'd lost track of how many times he'd switched names, and could only remember a handful of his previous aliases. Oh well. It's not like it really mattered.

"Holy crap!" the girl sitting next to his current target whispered to the teenager behind her. "He's not a model. He's a god." The other girl nodded vigorously in agreement.

He smirked slightly. His hearing was incredibly good for a humans; after all, it was demonically enhanced. Still, anyone with even remotely good hearing would have been able to catch that. It had been a very loud for a whisper.

"Now that you've introduced yourself, Rokudo-san, could you please take a seat, um," the man searched around the room for an open seat. Seeing one, he pointed at it triumphantly. "Behind Hibari-san."

How lucky.

Mukuro walked over to his new seat. Hibari didn't even look up when he passed. As he settled into his seat, the teacher seemed to remember something.

"Oh, right," he said suddenly. "Is there anyone who would like to show Rokudo-san around the school during lunch?"

Several hands shot up. They all belonged to girls. Surprise, surprise. He looked the teacher in the eye, releasing the tiniest bit of his power. Not a lot, but enough to persuade the man to pick Hibari. Mind control wasn't a much-used power of his, but in situations like this, he occasionally had to order someone to do something. It was a useful skill to have, but its effects were limited and didn't last long.

Still, it would work for right now. He needed some time to get to know his target, and now seemed as good a time as any. He thought back to his conversation with Reborn last night, still vaguely amused at how he'd gotten into this situation.

//Flashback//

"The target, it's, it's a boy."

There was a moment of silence, then, "So?"

Mukuro was stunned into silence.

"Is there a problem?" Reborn persisted. "I thought you wanted a challenge."

"Yes, I did. But how did you know that?" the demon asked, his voice somewhat lacking in it's normal infuriating, amused calmness, and his usual knowing smirk gone.

"A little bird told me." There was a mocking note in his boss' voice.

Mukuro almost slapped his forehead for being so stupid. "Chrome told you, didn't she?" Mukuro had a habit of complaining to the messenger. Chrome, who was listening to Mukuro's side of the conversation, turned pink and looked down at her feet. He sighed. That was the last time he'd ever confide in her. Reborn, though Mukuro'd never say this to his face, was a very twisted individual. In the two hundred plus years he'd been working for him, his boss had never ceased to surprise, shock, and yes, amaze him. The other was impossible to read.

"Who knows," was the non-helpful response.

"That's what I thought."

"Well, get started. You don't have forever," Reborn reminded him.

"So you were serious."

"I'm always serious."

All his boss heard from Mukuro's side of the phone was disbelieving silence, then the sound of the demon hanging up.

"This will be a challenge alright," Mukuro had grumbled to himself after he'd hung up.

//Flashback End//

* * *

Hibari glared at the boy behind him from the doorway. The second the bell had rung, signaling the end of class, the taller teen had been surrounded by girls, each offering to show him around the school. He was being held up by them, which meant that Hibari was being held up by them too. They only had so much time for lunch, and while Namimori wasn't that big of a school, Hibari still wanted time to eat his food. He didn't want to spend the entire break watching girls drooling over the new student. He'd seen enough of that in class, and was sure he's see a lot more before the school year ended.

Mukuro was getting a bit annoyed too. The girls had been at it for ten minutes already, and he was getting aggravated. His polite smile was beginning to slip when the teacher finally realized what was happening. "Girls!" he yelled, effectively silencing the mob. This gave Mukuro enough time to slip through the crowd to where his guide was.

"Sorry about that," he apologized, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Hn," was the terse response, before the other boy turned and walked out of the classroom. Mukuro raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He hurried to catch up, falling in step with his companion. Hibari began pointing out doors and labeling them with curt statements like, "That's the library," or, "The gym's here." The time when he wasn't talking (which was almost all of the tour) gave Mukuro a chance to study him.

He'd been honestly surprised when he'd first seen his target. The small head-shot given with the information in the folder hadn't been even close to capturing Hibari's feline grace, or his piercing black eyes. His silky dark hair fell around his face in semi-tamed strands, pieces of hair occasionally falling into his face and obscuring his eyes. The boy was smaller than him, and a bit more feminine looking, but no one would ever confuse Hibari for a girl. Feral, dangerous power radiated from his slim form, and his cold glares could freeze the sun. Altogether, he was probably one of the most gorgeous creatures Mukuro had ever seen. And he'd met a lot of people. Hibari was like a rose; beautiful, intoxicating, and deadly.

Mukuro was startled with his thoughts. It wasn't that the comparison was wrong, oh no, it fitted perfectly. He just didn't usually think in such flowery language (A/N: Luckily, when I typed that, it wasn't meant to be a pun. I swear, that is not my twisted sense of humor. Honest!)

His thoughts were interrupted by the other teen saying, "We're back," and walking back into the classroom. He trailed behind, only to be mobbed again, this time by guys.

"Damn, you're popular," one said enviously.

"You would be too if you looked like he does, Shinji," the red haired boy next to him, presumably his friend, said.

Shinji looked at the floor, sulking. Yet another boy quickly asked, "So, what do you think of the school?"

"It's nice," Mukuro replied politely, not really paying attention. He was too busy watching a fluffy little bird fly up to Hibari and land on the hand that he offered, chirping happily. A small smile crept onto the teen's face for a second, but it was gone so fast that the demon wondered if it had ever been there at all. He decided to give the other boy the benefit of the doubt and say it had. Shinji followed Mukuro's gaze to Hibari.

"Oh yeah, he was the one to give you the tour," he said, an edge of contempt, and something else...fear, maybe, in his voice.

"Sorry, dude," the red head from before added sympathetically.

"Why?" Mukuro asked, genuinely curious.

"Because he's scary and weird," Shinji burst out, quickly covering his mouth with his hands, his gaze flicking over to Hibari to see if the other boy had heard. He seemed to not have and Shinji relaxed.

The demon could understand the scary part. He wasn't scared of the smaller boy, but he was a demon with supernatural strength and demonic powers. The others being scared, he could understand. But weird? "He just seemed kind of cold," he said.

"Really?" the red head asked. "I heard that he's, like, obsessed with the school and how great it is."

Mukuro raised his eyebrows, recalling Hibari's careless attitude on the tour.

"Yeah," Shinji agreed. "I heard he taught his bird the school anthem. How weird is that?"

The demon glanced back at the Hibari, catching his eyes for a second before the other teen hurriedly turned his gaze elsewhere. But Mukuro knew he'd heard, and hadn't tried to stop the rumours.

Hibari Kyoya, hm? Mukuro's usual smirk appeared on his face as he studied his target. What a complicated person. Maybe this will be fun after all.