I'm baffled how you came to the conclusion that whatever the fuck you tried to pull using your personal experience could be comparable to anything about their relationship. He doesn't hate her and has never shown genuine hatred toward her. You have real feelings of hate for your coworkers. You're saying that he could be just faking niceness because that's what YOU do, but that is simply not what he's doing, that is not his character. It doesn't matter how much you try to debate with me, that won't change his character.
It honestly feels like you just really wanted an excuse to attack me with that cute attempt of yours.
It's also adorable how you ignored when I mentioned Saito treasures his time with Akane, but that wouldn't align with your personal experience with your coworkers since you "hate" them vewy vewy mush
Then you tried to argue that "both adaptations can change it if they want!", and it was clear that somehow you failed to understand the simple argument I provided. Maybe you didn't pay enough attention, or you simply lacked the capacity to do so. If you re-read carefully, you will notice I never argued that an anime could not change the source material. I stated that in this story, Saito's character and his relationship with Akane do NOT change depending on the adaptation. It doesn't matter if they could do it, they didn't, and the same information remains there.
I don't know what went through your head to claim they re-wrote their relationship or that we can't understand what he is thinking. That's such an idiotic thing to say that I'm surprised you were bold enough to do so. The information and arguments I provided align with all three versions of the story.
My introduction to this story was via the manga, that was all I read until I saw the anime announcement, after that I dropped the manga and waited for the anime. I waited until all 12 episodes aired to pick up the manga again, and after that, I continued to the light novel. It makes no sense for you people to say "well, the anime/manga didn't make it clear!" when my first experience with the story was the same as yours, and for me, it was always abundantly clear that Saito has feelings for Akane and enjoys their time together. Yes, including the bickering.
Him playing along with her outbursts and adding to her absurd claims not proof enough for you? Or when he made those strawberry sandwiches to give her energy while she was studying? Or when he skipped his grandpa's party to meet Akane because she felt lonely?
If you can look at moments like those and claim to me that he doesn't care for her, that he shows resentment, that we can't know what he's thinking, that he's only doing it out of politeness, that when he says "I hate her too!" he genuinely means it, then you're too fucking stupid to understand his character and we are long past the point of what is considered a serious discussion and this conversation is over.
THIS IS NOT EVEN A COMPLICATED STORY. I genuinely can't understand how you people can watch it and come up with any conclusion other than that. It makes me wonder if this is all some type of projection, maybe you had a bad experience with someone difficult to deal with like Akane in real life, and now you're projecting your anger toward the characters and expecting Saito to share the same resentment as you. But he doesn't. Never have and never will.