I can't believe it's already summer, Bianca thought as she leaned against the wall of the gym. She was in Aspertia City, waiting for Cheren to finish up a gym battle. She would have liked to watch the battle, but knew that Cheren got nervous enough without an audience. The poor man sweats like a tepig.

Bianca sighed and wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead. The weather outside was almost unbearable, but this was the only day she was able to take off work for Professor Juniper. Tomorrow she would be meeting a new group of trainers that would need starter pokemon. Cheren wasn't able to have the luxury of an entire day away from his job, being a new gym leader, he had a lot of battles and paperwork to attend to. When they had talked over the X-Transceiver, he had told her that they could spend time together, but only for an hour or so. She didn't mind, she just felt so lonely now that Cheren was busy with battles and Touya and Touko were off searching…

No. She shouldn't think about that, it would only make her sad. But to think that the whole incident with Team Plasma had happened a whole two years ago was shocking. As her mind began to wander, the doors to the gym opened and a young girl walked out. She cradled a wounded tympole in her arms and looked dejected. The girl noticed Bianca, who gave a smile and a wave. The girl offered a small smile in return and ran off towards the pokemon center.

Bianca cautiously opened the gym doors and peaked inside. Cheren was putting his pokeballs into a machine on one side of the building, next to the office where he did all of his paperwork. The machine began to glow and beep as his pokemon's health was restored. Cheren looked up suddenly, his dark hair moving with the motion. He gave a slight nod of his head.

"Bianca," he said. Bianca smiled to herself. Cheren had never been a talkative person, and this was the way he tended to greet her.

"Hi, Cheren!" she shouted across the gym, grinning from ear to ear. Cheren looked amused at how happy she was to see him, and blushed a little at the thought. Bianca started walking towards him. "Are you almost ready to go?"

"Give me two minutes," he answered. He went into his office and started to write on a stack of paper.

Bianca followed him into the office, and stood behind him as he sat at his desk. She was unable to contain her curiosity about the gym battle any longer. "You didn't go too hard on that girl, did you? Her tympole looked pretty hurt."

Cheren huffed a little. "Actually, I would have wished she would go easier on me. It was a close call, but she won the battle and I had to give her a badge."

Bianca smiled at that. Cheren got up from the desk and turned to look at her. "Okay," he said. "That should do it for now. Let's get out of here, shall we?"

Bianca nodded and followed him out the door.

The two ended up going to an ice cream parlor in town. Bianca had never spent much time in Aspertia, but Cheren had heard good reviews about the parlor from trainers he had talked to. The two both ordered single scoop ice cream cones; Bianca had chocolate ice cream with sprinkles while Cheren had plain vanilla.

They both decided to sit outside because the parlor was fairly crowded on such a hot day, not to mention the fact that Cheren despised crowds. They found a table with an umbrella overhead and sat down across from each other, Bianca taking off her orange jacket in an attempt to stay cooler.

"How has work been at the lab?" Cheren asked, licking at his ice cream.

"Oh! It's been fine!" she said. Then she looked down at her shoes and blushed. "Actually, it hasn't been that great." Cheren stared at her as she continued. "Professor Juniper is really nice, and I like meeting all of the new trainers, but the work is really hard and sometimes I can't keep up." She frowned and rested her chin in her palm, with her elbow on the table. "I miss the old days, travelling and having fun all the time." She sighed, uncharacteristically forlorn. "And I miss getting to hang out with you, Touya, and Touko every day." Her voice cracked on the last syllable and she pouted.

Cheren nodded and looked away. "I know," he said. "We're all growing up, I suppose."

"Too quickly," Bianca mumbled. She hated that her friends seemed to be growing apart, and they all seemed to be moving on to bigger and better things while she sat in a lab all day.

Cheren looked at her and gave a small smile. "It won't be too bad," he assured her. He blushed a little as he spoke. "You'll still have me."

Bianca's face turned a little pink at the way he said that. She looked at him and smiled. "That's right. We'll find more time to spend together, won't we?"

His ears were turning red and he looked away and back at her. "Definite-Bianca!"

Bianca's ice cream scoop then slid off of her cone and onto the ground. She hadn't been paying attention to the way she was holding it, and now it was spattered all over the concrete and her shoes.

Looking at Bianca's shocked face made Cheren break into a fit of laughter. She looked at him, pouting, but soon was unable to keep from smiling and started to giggle as well.

Cheren looked at her again and smiled warmly. "You haven't changed at all, have you?"