[His eyes water a bit at Victor saying he has faith in him but it's not all the bad kind of tears. It's bittersweet instead, the sad mixed with the soothing feeling of being supported that way.]

Some of the people here have been here six months already. I asked. And they have no idea how long all of this will take. We could be stuck here for years. Even if we get sent back to the same moment we got taken, being here for years might mean --

[It might mean that he'll gets too old. It means his joints will start to get less flexible and he'll get injured more easily and he'll start to feel his age. The window he can compete in is so brief. People lasting as long as Victor did -- and staying in their prime -- are a bit of anomaly.]

The schooling for all the superheroing takes up time and the missions take up time, and I'll probably still get to practice sometimes but --

[But he has to choose between helping against something horrible or focusing on his skating and ignoring his conscience eating at him as people get hurt and struggle against a horrible thing that wants to eat his loved ones.]

I tried to get around it in my head. I tried to come up with excuses about how skating is just as important or how I'd be bad at superheroing or how it's not my fight. [He tried to justify why he should stay out of it and focus on his own thing.]

And then I keep thinking of Hasetsu. [His face contorts up into misery.] The Grand Prix Final matters but it doesn't matter as much as that.

[He tries to flatten out his features into something calmer than he feels, but his voice trembles.]

That's okay, though. It's just a medal.