In this second volume, we get two stories that help provide more insight into the characters of Hokuto and Subaru. Seishiro is around, but he remains mysterious.
First, Subaru goes to help a girl who has fallen into an unexplained coma after being raped by boys in her neighborhood. It turns out that this girl was his first love, Mitsuki. They suffered a misunderstanding in their youth: wanting Subaru's attention and kindness all to herself, Mitsuki told Subaru that she hated him for not being normal. Now, though, Mitsuki remembers him fondly and has been wishing for him to come and save her from her despair.
Mitsuki says that it wasn't fair that someone could take away her dreams and happiness, which is why she decided to never wake up, but Subaru tells her that if she never wakes up, she'll be taking away her mother's happiness - and his own. In Subaru's worldview, keeping other people happy is paramount, even if it requires sacrificing yourself. This is another direct contrast with Seishiro, who in volume 1 claimed that the only way to find your own happiness is by taking happiness from others.
The second story in volume 2 presents yet another worldview: Hokuto's. She saves a woman who is being accosted by several men. When they get to talking, it turns out that the woman is a sex worker and the men are the police. Hokuto doesn't work to keep others happy or to keep herself happy - she works to try to understand other people. While Subaru claimed that he wouldn't be able to understand Mitsuki because he wasn't her, Hokuto puts herself into others' shoes easily. She has sympathy for the foreign woman because she understands that service workers of any sort have difficult jobs. She even shows understanding for the police officers who she helps the other woman to avoid. Their jobs are also difficult and they're just living their lives the best that they can, just like everyone else. Hokuto won't ask questions of a stranger because it would be rude to make them answer if they didn't want to -- but if that stranger happened to want to talk, she's willing to listen and understand.
The foreign woman tells Hokuto that it's impossible for a foreigner to understand the Japanese mindset. What's telling is that Hokuto, the understander, doesn't contradict her. Hokuto says later that it doesn't matter where someone's from, that they're still people, but the understanding seems to work in one direction. Hokuto understands her new friend, but isn't understood in return. It's not an uncommon theme for the Japanese to see themselves as so different that others couldn't possibly understand them. I remember seeing a quote from a manga artist who was amazed that foreigners would be able to appreciate their story because they felt that it was so fundamentally Japanese that no one outside of the culture would get it.
So my question here is whether CLAMP was speaking through the foreign girl in claiming that no outsiders could understand the Japanese, or if they were simply echoing a popular sentiment. Hokuto says something later that shows what the CLAMP mindset might be: "You can't classify a person as an objective unit - as a "Japanese" or as a "Gaijin". You and I are basically the same, we're just human beings." Instead of asking whether "foreigners" as a group can understand "Japanese" as a group, the important part is that each individual person can do their part to understand the other individual people, regardless of what group they belong to.
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