>>46963377Right before he traveled to Unova at 15 years old, he couldn't bring his current team with. (I incorporate game transfers into lore with the headcanon that gym-challenging trainers have to always start from scratch to make the gym challenge fair so they don't sweep every gym with level 100 pokemon, so they have to wait to a certain point in their league challenge to be able to transfer their pokémon from across regions.) Anyway, he was getting to the age where a human girl claiming him was becoming a possibility so before he left for Unova she confessed her feelings for him which led to him confessing his feelings for her. She can speak telepathically but she slowly began to learn to speak physically as well.
