About Azusa:
Abit on Azusa, Vernon's Azumarill
She has a gift that came from her mother, his grandmother's Azumarill. And that's being very attuned and aware of people's emotions, and knows how to tailor their reactions to it when necessary.
Which is why she kinda loves the stage, when she is performing with Vernon when he was younger. But this is also where she started to exhibit some behaviours which Vernon hasn't seen before, like lying down on him if he ever felt breathless/extremely anxious, pulling him away from and being aggressive with people who were over-stressing him. She has attacked a fellow paparazzi once when he was pressuring Vernon on some questions.
She also began to bring forward the meals he forgot, tries to snap him back to attention because he spaced out, and also becomes part of a grounding mechanism by booping his knees.
And that's when Vernon realised that something is wrong with he himself; and this has become what he knew, was PTSD.
The rough treatment from his parents, and the continued ignoring of those memories, over exhaustion was what triggered these things.
As he seeks treatment, then heading back to Paldea, knowing what Azusa did, she has since been certified as his support Pokémon and has an ID for it. His medications and Azusa were declared in the academy before he started.
While Vernon is very fearful of what people will see of him, as he was famous for a long time, eventually he tells everything to his colleagues (where one becomes his boyfriend-husband), and they gradually accept and accommodate him for who he is.
That includes including Azusa into the classes that he was teaching, and allowing her to walk around the academy. His colleagues will warn the students to not interact with Azusa too much from time to time, as while sociable, she's doing her job. But they love her nonetheless!