REVEALED KNOWLEDGE

By Tsukiko Hitachiin

Notes and disclaimer: This fic is a companion piece to "Hidden Knowledge" which takes place at the same time of that story. It details the perspective of the other "participants" of the conversation that takes place between father and son. Also, I do not own Ouran Host Club. That honor belongs to Bisco Hatori, who is one of the greatest manga artists I've never had the privilege of meeting. I am not making any money off of this fic, and I claim no ownership of any of the characters. So please don't sue me. Thank you.

Special note: This story mixes dialogue from the other one, so to avoid confusion, I italicized dialogue from "Hidden Knowledge" into this fic to integrate the two stories.

"Keizo?"

In the cool, dark palatial master bedroom of the Hitachiin mansion, a glamorous amber-eyed woman looked at her hand resting on the cold silk sheets where there should have been a tired, overworked executive in need of a good night's sleep. Sitting up and pulling the spaghetti strap of her white designer nightgown back on her right shoulder, Yuzuha Hitachiin glared at the empty space in the luxurious king-size bed she shared with her husband whenever their careers didn't take them away from each other.

Geez, Keizo! I'm going to Paris later this week and you're up and around at this unholy hour of the morning! She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Unfortunately her eyes were too bleary so she couldn't read the numbers right away. So she took one of her slender manicured hands and rubbed the fatigue out of them vigorously. Then she looked again. It read 4:50 a.m., if the servants had set it to the right time.

Groaning, the Hitachiin matriarch switched on the light, got out of bed, snatched her satin lavender bathrobe off a nearby chair and put it over her bare shoulders to stave off the sudden cold she felt. Nevertheless, the twins' mother was used to getting up at early hours to prepare for fashion shows and photo shoots. So cold morning hours were always a constant companion to her, along with hurried breakfasts and long naps on airplanes.

Yuzuha knew her husband had been exhausted after having worked incredibly hard on a business trip in Cairo from which he had recently returned. She missed having him by her side and had wanted to cherish their "alone time" when they could be together and intimate after having been apart constantly because of their respective careers.

She also felt a pang of guilt at not having been able to find time to be around her sons as much as she would have liked. Growing up, Hikaru and Kaoru had always been lonely and left to the care of a long string of strange servants and nannies. Even when the twins were babies, Yuzuha had always gotten up to supervise the diaper changings and feedings that went along with being a new mother. She didn't hold them much after they had reached a certain age because they got too heavy and they didn't like being held separately.

To make up for her absences, Yuzuha often brought presents back for her sons, and would give them access to whatever clothes they wanted (Her creations, of course) so that they could have outfits for their Host Club activities and for their best friend, Haruhi Fujioka, who had been the first person to break into their isolated little world.

Thank you, Haruhi-chan! They're so much happier now!

Yuzuha was also very permissive with her sons, and paid no attention to the fact that they still slept in the same room together since they were born. This may have raised some disapproving looks with a few parents at Ouran High School, but Yuzuha didn't care. She was a proud member of the Hitachiin family. She was a much-sought-after fashion designer and president of her own brand, fluent in Japanese, English, Italian, German and French, and yet another strong woman in a long line of creative, ambitious women. She wasn't about to let anyone tell her how to raise her kids. She loved her family unconditionally, and felt that she only needed to please them, her friends, and her paying clients.

To hell with what the rest of the world thought!

Opening the double doors to the master bedroom as slowly and quietly as she could, the twins' mother stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind her. She listened carefully for any voices or footsteps, but didn't hear any at the moment. So she ventured out toward the long staircase that would lead her downstairs to her husband's study. Even though Keizo had never told her where it was, she instinctively knew because it was the most isolated area in the house, and she knew how shy her husband was by nature.

As she moved with measured footsteps down the corridor toward the stairway, a door suddenly burst open not ten feet in front of her, revealing a young red-headed man who was practically her spitting image. Her son was sweating and panting as if he had run laps around the family gardens. His eyes were wide, and his worn black tank top clung to him in a lopsided fashion. He wore wrinkled green plaid pajama bottoms and he was looking around frantically.

Yuzuha started, letting a gasp escape her lips. The boy then locked eyes with her.

"Mom!"

The twins' mother recovered and peered at her son in the semi-darkness. She frowned slightly at the worn tank top her boy was adjusting and wondered how long he was planning on wearing that old thing. But then she looked at the sheer anxiety in her child's eyes and any potential criticism of his sleepwear evaporated and she quickly went into "comforting mother" mode.

"Baby what's wrong? You look so scared. What happened? Did you have a dream that Hikaru disappeared?" Even to this day, Yuzuha couldn't accurately tell the boys apart, so she often guessed. Sometimes she got it right.

Despite his panic, the young man closed his eyes and sighed. "Mom, I'm Hikaru."

Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

"Sorry. Did you have a dream that Kaoru disappeared?"

"He's really not in the room, Mom! I don't know where he is. I need to find him, or I'll never get back to sleep." The older Hitachiin twin allowed the words to tumble out one over the other. He always worried about Kaoru whenever the younger twin was not within his sight. What if he had gotten lost, like they did when they were kids, or if he was hurt or had been kidnapped?

"I know what you mean," Yuzuha stated in reply while brushing her bangs out of her face. "Your father has also disappeared, and now I can't sleep either." Then she got a better look at Hikaru and noticed how fatigued yet scared he was.

"I guess we'd better go look for your father and brother so we can both get back to sleep. Come on, Hikaru." Resigned to the situation, Yuzuha immediately took the lead and resumed her walk to the stairs. Hikaru took a few calming breaths, brushed his own hair out of his face, and followed his mother, hoping that they could find their respective partners and still get a decent amount of sleep.

As the pair descended the wide, burgundy-carpeted stairs, Yuzuha made a shushing movement with her hand, indicating that they were on the servants' floor. Even though it wasn't as fancy as the floor above, it was still quite luxurious as servants' quarters went. Since it wasn't time for any of them to get up, however, mother and son made every effort to stay quiet as they tiptoed down another long corridor to a slightly narrower, blue-carpeted stairwell.

The faint sound of a door closing startled Yuzuha and Hikaru when they were halfway down the second set of stairs. But then they turned and grinned at each other. This had confirmed the Hitachiin matriarch's feelings as to where her husband was. She made a "follow me" gesture towards her son, and they both resumed their descent into the east wing of the mansion.

After a moment, their eyes adjusted to the darkness and they saw a very faint light coming from under the door of a room at the other end of the hallway.

Mother and son looked at each other again.

Bingo!

This time, the pair did not have to worry about being totally silent since the rooms on this floor were all guest rooms and no one was visiting. Barely containing their excitement at having found their charges, Yuzuha and her son sprinted down the hallway but then stopped about twenty feet in front of the door to hide the sounds of their arrival. After catching their breaths they crept up to the solid wooden barrier and Hikaru leaned in and listened for voices.

It was definitely Keizo and Kaoru talking, and Hikaru could hear the sudden anxiety in his brother's voice as he questioned his father. He started to reach for the doorknob, but his mother's cool hand stopped him. Yuzuha stared at her son and gave him a silent signal that indicated one thing.

I want to hear this.

So Hikaru placed his hands on the door and leaned his ear on it, while his mother stood behind him and tried to lean in also. It was a little harder for her since her son was taller and was eavesdropping from the middle of the door. Nevertheless, Yuzuha could hear some snatches of conversation as her husband relayed what was previously hidden knowledge about her sons.

Hikaru's eyes widened as he listened to his father and brother talking. As a child, he and his twin didn't see much of their father because he was always away on business. But then Hikaru realized that Keizo Hitachiin was a master stealth artist. It was a trait he had passed on to his sons without meaning to, but that had helped them in their quests to kidnap Haruhi and sneak up on others when they wanted to and play pranks without getting caught. The twins' father had no problems slipping in and out of places unnoticed. Yet he was surprisingly observant about people and situations whenever he wanted to make himself known.

Could Dad have been there all along silently playing the "which one is Hikaru" game and getting it right? If so, was it because he could easily distinguish our personalities or was he just learning from Mom's mistakes? Had he always known how to tell Kaoru and I apart and just kept quiet about it? Just what is going on here?

These questions buzzed around in Hikaru's head and he found himself getting agitated again and starting to shake. His mother, noticing the boy's disquiet, placed her hand on his shoulder to calm him down, mostly because she didn't want their cover blown. The conversation was too interesting for them to interrupt now.

But the next thing Keizo said nearly caused Hikaru and Yuzuha to fall backwards in absolute shock.

"The real way I tell you and Hikaru apart is that Hikaru's actions are one level more like your mother's than yours."

Yuzuha and Hikaru's eyes widened and their jaws dropped in unison as one thought went into their minds at exactly the same time.

Oh, HELL NO!!

The twins' mother barely suppressed a gasp at having found out in such a way that Keizo knew so much about her sons. She was immediately jealous that her own husband could distinguish the twins from one another effortlessly even though she was guessing wrong about half the time. It was so embarrassing that she was this far behind the power curve when it came to her family.

At the same time, Hikaru continued to listen with barely-suppressed irritation. Even though he loved his mother to death, he didn't like being compared to her. It was a slap to his male pride, and what was worse his own brother was gaining a substantial amount of amusement over this revelation. He could hear Kaoru laughing loudly at finding out that his twin was such a mama's boy!

"That Kaoru. I hope he's enjoying himself," Hikaru whispered sullenly to his mother who was also looking thoroughly annoyed.

"He's enjoying himself a lot more than your father will be, that's for certain," Yuzuha whispered in reply. Suddenly a movement from within the room caused the eavesdroppers to freeze in place and stay absolutely still. They plastered their ears to the door and continued to listen to what was being said.

As she listened, Yuzuha mulled over that simple sentence in her head and found herself thinking about it and seething. If Keizo knew how to tell our sons apart, what kept him from imparting the knowledge to his own wife?

Then to her dismay, she got the answer.

"If what I say is true, and Hikaru and your mother found out, do you think we'd ever hear the end of it?"

After hearing this, Yuzuha glanced at her son, whose eyes were now narrowed in anger and who was feeling his shaking hands clench into fists. Hikaru was trying desperately to keep from slamming the door open and going in the study to yell at its occupants for making a mockery of him. She was also feeling pretty annoyed, particularly since her husband should have been getting a much-needed rest before he suffered a heart attack. Why was he out of bed in the first place?

"Mom, I've heard enough. I need to go in there," Hikaru whispered angrily. "I can't believe Kaoru had such a good laugh at my expense. He's damn right he won't be hearing the end of this."

Yuzuha nodded in agreement. She'd also heard enough. Her husband was going back to bed whether he liked it or not.

"Neither will your father. Okay, we're going in on the count of three. One…two…"

She didn't finish before a she heard a hand on the other side of the door followed by her husband's voice again.

"Just how long do you two intend to stand there and listen?" Keizo opened the door quickly and Hikaru immediately lost his balance and fell through the doorway, landing on his hands.

At the last possible second, Yuzuha grabbed both sides of the door frame with her hands to keep from toppling onto her son. She watched Hikaru for a second to make sure he wasn't hurt and then saw her younger son pick him up by his arm and pull him out of her way. After a moment, the twins' mother wrapped her bathrobe around herself and re-tied the sash tightly before stalking up to Keizo and giving him the third degree, not just about being out of bed, but of keeping this important knowledge to himself all this time.

Hikaru, who was also still reeling from these late night discoveries, was also intent on making sure Kaoru knew his pride was injured over this "mama's boy" business. Remembering the nightmare he had about his brother disappearing—a nightmare that had come true for a time—Hikaru immediately launched his own tirade at his twin.

Keizo and Kaoru didn't say another word that night.

Meanwhile out in the corridor, the sounds of chastisement echoed all the way back to the bottom of the blue-carpeted stairwell. A glamorous elderly woman with long gray hair and clad in a light green bathrobe stood on the bottom stair leaning on the ornate banister and gazed in the direction of the study. She allowed a mischievous smile to creep up onto her face. This was the most interesting thing she had experienced in a long time outside of her gardens. It wasn't often that the Hitachiin family was together like this, since Yuzuha and Keizo were away on business a lot of the time, and Hikaru and Kaoru were busy with school and their club activities.

After another few minutes of listening to the scolding, the woman twirled one of her orchids around in her fingers and tucked it in her hair behind her ear. Behind her, two female servants also listened to the somewhat twisted version of "family bonding" that their mistress was currently enjoying. Then the amber-eyed woman turned around and addressed her servants.

"Well, now that Yuzuha-chan and Hikaru-chan have been discovered, it's just gotten boring. Let's go back upstairs."

The two servants bowed low for their mistress and allowed her to pass them on the stairs before following behind her. As the trio ascended, the older woman pondered for a moment, and then made her decision as to what she wanted to do next.

"I think some tea would be nice."

A/N: Well, there it is. I decided that a companion piece to "Hidden Knowledge" would be a cool idea. I wanted to experiment with the idea of a "same plot, different perspective" story. Hope it worked. I also think that the twins' parents are intriguing characters. Chapter 45 of the manga proves this, and provided some wonderful fodder for this story. Hatori-sensei has done a fantastic job, and I can't wait to get the next volume!

P.S. Anyone want to try and guess the identity of the last spy?