"We will arrive in Lumiose City in approximately five minutes. Please return your seats to the upright position and get ready to disembark with your TMV Pass on person. The time is six twenty-five PM." The TMV operator's voice over the public address system slowly stirred Clemont from his unconsciousness until he was fully awake.
He blinked hard and tried clearing his throat a few times before his foggy vision returned to normal and his throat was unobstructed. Staring into the fluorescent lights in the cabin made him feel more tired than he actually was. In reality, Clemont was excited about coming home to Lumiose City to visit his family again. Leaning on his right side for support, Bonnie was still sleeping, dreaming about becoming a trainer like Ash someday. The train ride from Snowbelle City was a rather short one, with the siblings sleeping off most of it. For the times they were awake, Clemont quickly worked himself back into a slumber by nuzzling his head into the collar of his jumpsuit while Bonnie buried her face into her brother's sleeve, trying to shield her eyes from the bright cabin lights. The trip by rail marked the first time that Clemont and Bonnie were alone since meeting Ash.
Clemont didn't like the fact that he was separated from his longtime friends, but he realized that he had to come home eventually. Clemont was grateful for the invention of e-mail and the telephone because he could still keep in touch with Ash and Serena even though they both were halfway around the world at the moment. He had grown rather attached to them in the time they spent together.
A year before, he considered himself a weak and scrawny nerd, but he transformed into a confident young man thanks to the lessons Ash taught him on the journey. Fellow passengers on the subway car who recognized him could finally see it behind his glasses that he was Clemont, the proud gym leader of Lumiose City, not some amateur inventor that happened to be a gym leader on the side. The year away from home made all the difference in how he carried himself around. Bonnie, his younger sister, was proud of her brother for it.
Clemont nudged the small girl's shoulder with his arm. "Bonnie, wake up."
Bonnie sluggishly opened her eyes, still tired. She looked at Clemont. "Clemont, are we there yet?"
"Almost."
Bonnie overheard a private conversation between two girls about Clemont's age sitting across from her.
"Is that Clemont? He's so cute in such a dorky way! He's just adorable!" The first girl whispered, giggling.
The second girl nodded in agreement, blushing. Seeing this, Bonnie raised her right eyebrow and shot a sly, cheeky grin at them in response, which mortified both of them and caused them to hide their faces into their tops. She then nudged Clemont with her left arm while pointing at the two girls and winking at him, accidentally tickling him in the side in the process.
"Bonnie! It's rude to point," Clemont scolded as he tried to hold back laughter.
As he looked away again, the train started to slow down.
The TMV operator's voice was garbled by static as he began to use the public address system again. "We have arrived at Lumiose Station. Do not forget to take your luggage with you, and mind the gap between the car and the platform. Have your TMV Pass ready to present to ticket inspectors at the turnstiles. For those transferring to the Kiloude City seven o'clock express, the train you will be transferring to is at the orange platform on the floor below our current floor. The time is six thirty-one PM."
Clemont and Bonnie disembarked the train together and walked into the central area of Lumiose Station to find their bearings.
Lumiose Station was always a nightmare to navigate, even by Kalosian standards. Today was no exception to the rule as Clemont and Bonnie got lost more times than he cared to admit in the sprawl of a building that even most locals of Lumiose City had trouble finding a way around. Chalking it up to the inefficiency of Kalosian design, Clemont got to work on finding the exit that would put them the closest to South Boulevard. Clemont noticed many ushers were now stationed on key points in the station to help direct locals and tourists alike. As he looked around, he noticed that Bonnie was missing from his side.
A female usher was surprised when Bonnie ran up to her and asked her to take care of her brother with twinkles in her eyes. "Will you please take care of my brother?"
Clemont calmly walked up to Bonnie. "Bonnie, not today. I just want to get home, okay?"
Bonnie protested loudly as she looked up at Clemont with a look of indignance. "That's not the way you go about getting a wife! Clemont, you will eventually need to find some-"
Her protests were cut short by Clemont as the aipom arm stowed in his backpack gently picked her up and gave her no choice but to limply hang above the ground while Clemont dragged her along to the exit.
"I hate it when you do that," Bonnie said dejectedly.
Her face brightened up considerably as she thought up one more embarrassing thing to say to bother her brother even more. "I hope you'll consider it!"
Clemont's bad eye, his left, twitched slightly in response to Bonnie's sudden exclamation. The usher slowly walked away in a professional manner. This incident marked the end of her shift, and she had seen stranger events happen.
Slowly, he walked out of Lumiose Station with Bonnie still hanging from the aipom arm and began walking south along North Boulevard. The sun's harsh glare caused his glasses to refract its rays into his eyes, stinging them, but it was nothing a little walk wouldn't fix. When North Boulevard turned into South Boulevard, Clemont knew that he was near his house. Clemont's third arm had to let go of Bonnie as she was shaking too much for the machine to handle, too excited to come home. Three more minutes of walking finally led the siblings to their door. Their home was just another unremarkable, but still beautiful Kalosian row house, like the other homes on his street. Unlike the other homes, however, their house had a clear view of Prism Tower, where his gym was. It was just one of the perks of being a gym leader.
Clemont and Bonnie walked up the small and wide staircase that led to their door, which was painted a boring shade of barn red. He reached into one of the many pockets of his jumpsuit to fish out his keys. His keys weren't there as he felt his hands grab air and nothing else. Had this situation presented itself at an earlier point in his journey, he would have started panicking. But this Clemont was new and improved just like Clembot, the AI he left in charge of Lumiose City's gym a little less than a year ago to enable him to go on his journey. Instead of mentally collapsing, Clemont made a plan. First, he would search all of his other pockets on his jumpsuit. Then, if searching his jumpsuit proved unsuccessful, he would search his backpack. If his backpack turned up empty, he knew he could always call his father to unlock the door for them. He would be happy to see his children again, anyway.
Clemont finally found the keys hidden inside one of the many poké balls in his bag that he carried his many inventions in. He didn't remember specifically why he thought storing his keys in this manner was a good idea, but he was relieved to find them anyway. He put the key into the lock and turned it, revealing a dark living room with the furniture suspiciously undisturbed. Bonnie was smiling deviously behind him. She had something special planned for her forgetful brother. Clemont, however, was deeply reminiscing about the time when he and Ash made a promise to battle each other for the Voltage Badge after Ash acquired four badges in this very living room. The prerequisite was initially programmed into Clembot's AI. He remembered promising a battle Ash would never forget for the rest of his life, and how he stayed true to his word. As he relived that day, the lights in the living room turned on remotely and concealed party poppers went off, showering confetti over him while making festive noises.
To his surprise, his father, Meyer, jumped out of the coat room door in the back of the living room. "Surprise! Happy birthday, Clemont!"
In his happiness, he ran up to his father and hugged for a long time. Clemont hadn't seen him in the five months since leaving Lumiose City after his gym battle with Ash. Bonnie joined the hug, too. The reunited family cried tears of joy as they all hugged each other tightly.
The words "Happy birthday, Clemont!" sounded rather alien to Clemont. He knew he had been gone for a year, but he questioned whether it was possible for a year to pass by so quickly. The fact was still unknown to him, but Clemont had learned a final, bittersweet lesson from his former traveling companions: time passed much faster when one was having fun. He let a single tear roll down his right cheek when he realized this a few seconds later. He was only a day separated from his friends, yet he already missed them like they were gone for ten years. Clemont was fortunate that his round-rimmed glasses covered most of his face, he couldn't bear to have his family see him emotionally wrecked on what should have been a happy day for him. Nobody noticed but Bonnie.
"What's wrong, big brother?" Bonnie asked, not wanting to see her brother hurting.
Clemont forced his face back into a neutral look and said, "It's nothing, Bonnie. I forgot to blink. Can you please get me a tissue?"
Bonnie thought her brother's excuse was a pile of tauros excrement, but she took his word for it anyway and got the tissue for him.
Clemont went to bed that night frowning. He thrashed about in his bed as he tried to get some sleep, but there was nothing he could do except close his eyes and hope that sleep would come. At around two in the morning, he fell into a light sleep. It wouldn't be enough. The next day, Clemont awoke to a splitting headache and the sound of someone softly rapping their knuckles on his bedroom door. Sunshine shone through the open window as Clemont turned over under the covers to check the clock on his nightstand. Midday.
Clemont groaned in pain as he laid in bed with his eyes open. "What is it?"
Bonnie revealed to Clemont that she on the other side of the door. She had been impatiently checking for her brother to see if her brother was awake since seven in the morning. She had finally lost her patience. "Clemont, wake up! Someone just called from the pokémon center. They were saying they have a delivery for you."
Clemont thought that this was unusual, for he hadn't ordered anything.
Still tired from barely getting any rest the night before, Clemont tried in vain to extend his time in bed. "Can you tell them to hold it for a few hours more?"
The request enraged Bonnie, who was now banging on the door with the bottoms of her fists. "No! They can't hold it for you more than they already have! It's an urgent letter, Clemont! Go and get it!"
"Give me five minutes." Clemont responded with a weak voice.
Cursing his body for not letting him sleep longer, he gingerly got out of bed while holding his hurting head.
Quickly getting dressed in his usual light blue jumpsuit, glasses, and sneakers, Clemont got out of the door headed in the direction of the pokémon center located at the intersection of South Boulevard and Vernal Avenue. It was an easy five minute's walk for an average person to walk the distance from Clemont's house to the pokémon center on South Boulevard, but for Clemont, it took nearly two minutes more.
Clemont chastised himself for taking such a long time. "I keep telling myself I should work out more, but I never do it..."
In Clemont's opinion, this pokémon center was the best in Lumiose City. It was roomy, clean, and had a kinder Nurse Joy than the one on North Boulevard. The one on North Boulevard also offered the same amenities as its sister building to the south, but the Nurse Joy there had a reputation for being colder than a vanilluxe's blizzard. The one near his gym was also decent, but it was just too small to house a deliveryman. As he opened the door to the pokémon center, he saw the familiar-looking deliveryman donning a cap and messenger bag waiting off to the side of the reception desk. Like Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, the deliveryman looked exactly like all of his relatives.
Clemont walked up to him and showed him his trainer card. "Excuse me, do you have a delivery for me?"
"Yes, I do," was the man's short response.
Clemont breathed a sigh of relief when the man fished a small white envelope from his messenger bag and handed it to him. No heavy lifting for him today.
Giving the man a short thank-you, Clemont exited the pokémon center and slowly started the short trek along South Boulevard, heading for home with the envelope in hand.
Getting mail seemed so trivial compared to what he'd experienced on his journey. When he was still traveling around Kalos, he experienced a whole lifetime's worth of adventures and misadventures to write a book about. But back at home, Clemont was already bored. Real life just seemed so meaningless to the boy. He mourned his former lifestyle. A flock of pidgey flew lazily overhead heading towards Prism Tower, singing their sweet songs. It was not so sweet to Clemont, who was driven mad by the noise because the pidgey had interrupted his train of thought. The bird pokémon sensed the young gym leader's powerful aura and quickly quieted themselves as Clemont reached for a poké ball in his jumpsuit pocket, sparing them from his wrath and that of his electric-type pokémon. Sighing as he walked, Clemont slowly trundled along South Boulevard until he reached his door once more.
I wonder what it is, Clemont thought, still wondering about the contents of the envelope. As he slowly walked back into the house, he lumbered into the kitchen to get something sharp; his letter needed opening. Taking an informal inventory of the sharp objects in his kitchen, he noticed that the fruit knife still in the knife block was big enough to cut open the envelope while small enough to not cut the hand that was holding it steady as he opened it. Deciding that it was the fruit knife he was going to use to open his letter, he pulled it unceremoniously from its wooden home stuck in the knife block and carried it back to the dining room table. Clemont pulled out his seat on the table and sat down with the mail in hand. White paper was effortlessly torn apart by the sharp blade of the fruit knife, and the envelope was finally open. Inside, there was a folded-up piece of stationery with the Pokémon League Gym symbol on its front cover.
Clemont visibly recoiled at the sight of the symbol. Had he violated league regulations by letting Clembot run the gym? Or was it the time that all of the elevators malfunctioned, and the gym didn't have wheelchair access for that week? Did someone finally complain about his absence? Whatever it was, he was sure he wouldn't like what he read. What he did read almost made him jump out of his seat.
My Dearest Nerd Clemont,
I wrote a letter as soon as I heard that you were back! How was your trip? I'm doing fine for myself. Lucario and I have gotten super-strong! But I'm more interested in how you're doing. Have you achieved your goals? I miss seeing you when I visit Lumiose City. Let's hang out some time, just the two of us. If I didn't spell it out clearly enough for you, I'm asking you out. ;)
See you very soon,
Korrina~
It was his pen-pal, Korrina, the gym leader from Shalour City. Clemont questioned her use of official Pokémon League stationery, but he didn't mind: any news from her was good news.
On his adventure, he met her on the way to Shalour City. During one of their escapades at the time, they had gotten separated from the rest of the group on separate sides of the Cave of Trials. As they waited for rescue, they found out they got along easily with each other and quickly became friends instead of acquaintances. They promised to write to each other when they went their separate ways the next day. Essentially, Korrina was Clemont's complete opposite. Unlike Clemont, she was fiery, athletic, and extroverted. Clemont quickly became infatuated with her, as did she with Clemont. For Clemont, it was Korrina's enthusiasm towards anything she did that attracted him to her. For Korrina, it was Clemont's calculating and analytic personality that calmed her down and helped her think clearer. Even though they had completely different personalities, the two had completely fallen for each other.
With his face heating up, he folded up the letter with haste and pocketed it, knowing how his sister would never let him hear the end of this. Cracking a smile, he started mentally preparing to visit Shalour City next Saturday. Maybe this life isn't so boring after all, Clemont mused to himself as he got up to throw away the opened envelope still on the dining room table.