Pokemon Shipping Oneshots (Ash Ketchum Shippings Only)

Diodeshipping

it's been a while since i did a oneshot! i'm back from my mental health break and ready to start writing again. enjoy!

The festival celebrating the defeat of Team Flare was certainly an event to remember. Not only had the City on its own managed to save the rest of the Region and the other Regions, they also managed to rebuild the damaged properties in less than two weeks!

Ash and Sawyer, not too interested in the dances taking place on the stage, were on their own on a bench. Clemont was close to them, eating ice cream on his own and occasionally watching Bonnie to make sure she wasn't lost. Ash was talking extravagantly about the Kalos League finals, almost looking like he was about to jump out of his chair with his enthusiastic tone and hand gestures.

"And I was getting kinda tired, but kept going anyway..."

Sawyer didn't appear to be listening, however, and had his eyes fixated on his phone, not even nodding every now and then to at least look like he was paying attention.

Clemont, though five feet away, was paying close attention and smiling after every word. It was nice when Ash was so vibrant like this. He was angered by Sawyer ignoring him.

"...And I didn't expect to feel actual burns from Charizard's Flamethrower, but I'm sure that Gren-..."

Eventually, Ash also noticed that Sawyer was ignoring him and stopped mid-word. But he wasn't angry. His smile straightened out a bit, and he stared aimlessly for a little, absorbing the realization that he was probably wasting someone's time. His natural response to sadness was to give a small chuckle.

"Sorry, what did you say?", Sawyer said quickly, looking up from his phone for only a second.

"O-ah. Haha. Heh, nothing...just, got excited there..."

"Yeah. You do that a lot, don't you?"

"Ye-"

"It's kind of annoying, actually"

He broke a little in that moment. It looked normal as his face expression maintained the same, stiff smile and he didn't say anything in response, so there was no indication that he was upset. But that was just it. That shock was enough to turn him into a robot.

With wide eyes and a small, automated smile, he nodded slightly and stared into space, losing track of time in dissociation.

Seeing this, Clemont was angered beyond levels he could understand and was about to confront Sawyer, until he thought back to just a few hours ago, when he and Ash were in the car on the way to the festival. 

It was almost a re-enactment.

"It really was so amazing! I didn't understand it, but I still thought it was cool. The name gets me every time, though"

Clemont didn't need much focus for the road. Nothing considerably bad had happened to him that day. It's not like he had a bone to pick with Ash. He don't know why he did what he did next, but the most horrible part was, it almost felt like a habit.

"They always blow up, which is kind of a thing now. And I think that's okay"

What's worse is he was actually talking about something Clemont would've liked to hear if he had bothered to listen. But no. Like always, it was starting to seem, he switched off the moment Ash's mouth opened.

"But you shouldn't get so down beca-"

And there it was. Ash's mid-word pause. As soon as Clemont's irritated sigh met his senses, he stopped, realizing as he always did that he wasn't being listened to.