God, I now have this picture of Haruka and Serena meeting during one of their Contest journeys, possibly the Mikuri Cup! Actually, Mikuri Cup would be the perfect opportunity for Serena, Haruka and Hikari to meet each other. Then they’d talk about their struggles, journeys, encourage each other... naturally, Serena being new to Contests would be the one most nervous this time around, compared to Sinnoh Mikuri Cup where Hikari was making it’s return debut and was nervous about it. I just... got thinking about stuff. I suddenly have so many nice scenarios in my head... maybe if I find the inspiration, I try sketching them out. We’ll see. There’s so many long-time ideas I still haven’t sketched out due to not knowing how to put them on paper. :’D
Also, here’s what I’ve found interesting: It seems that whenever an old companion returns, the current companions have been told about them beforehand, and vice versa. So it’s like, Satoshi and Takeshi do keep in contact with their past friends. So in a way, Satoshi could be keeping in contact with any of his old friends even in Alola, like Iris, Dent, Serena, Citron & Eureka, Haruka, Hikari, etc. We’re just never shown it happening, and it’s totally fine since it’d take away precious screentime from more relevant things. But it’s still a neat thing to consider.