1. i adore your ugliness
(older!sasayan/natsume)
Asako has always wished for attention and love and people she can trust, and she first thinks that with Sasayan here, she will eventually come to take these things for granted. It's like how she will pay extra care to her newest pair of heels the first week or so, but within the next couple of months she can drop them on the floor and not even bother to pick them up. (Sasayan picks them up and puts them back in place and though he grumbles he still does it no matter how many brand new shoes she buys.)
The opposite happens when it comes to Sasayan and romance. She becomes greedy, and she knows she is horrible when she tells him "I love you." It is all selfish, all about her and him and nothing else because no one affects her the way Sasayan does, and she doesn't want that to ever change.
When she says "I love you" she means a lot of things that even she can't quite understand, but Sasayan doesn't get scared. She wonders when she became this way, and she wants to blame him because it's his entire fault!
Sasayan still loves her despite this, and it just makes everything worse and sometimes she feels close to crying but he always calls her a crybaby so Asako kisses him instead, determined to change. If she must be selfish, at least she can be brave.
Sasayan thinks that Natsume spoils him too much. He feels bad because he tries very hard not to spoil her in return. She would let everything go to her head and Sasayan would listen to all her requests. In all honesty, his ability to tell her 'no' or 'you're wrong' is only a flimsy ruse. She doesn't know how great the lengths he goes to just to live with her. Sasayan wonders why he does this to himself sometimes, but then he catches her smile from the corner of his eye and he abandons the thought for another day.
It's scary how different he acts around her. With his friends, Sasayan won't even hesitate to give them whatever they want, when they want it. He's obsessively kind because having everyone get along is the first thing on his mind. Sometimes, he wonders if all this niceness is natural. It had started as a genuine desire to be with friends, but now Sasayan feels so plain compared to everyone else – and he has little right to complain about a place he got himself into.
"I'm not as nice as you think I am," he wants to scream. The most frustrating thing is that his actions betray these words. No one believes him.
But then Natsume will sit down next to him, something on her mind like things always are. She will tell him things like "you're horrible" for forgetting to buy the milk, or "you're mean and rude and strict" when he pointedly informs her she's overspending. Natsume counts off all these imperfections with her fingers. Sasayan kisses the corner of her mouth as she does until she smiles again.
