"Next time..." he doesn't know what to say to that. He's not sure there's going to BE a next time. But it's not so much not hurting Minami's feelings or anything so much as he's not ready to say something like that out loud. He's depressed and doesn't want to skate anymore, but he's also a really sore loser and he really doesn't want it to end like this, either. He doesn't know what he wants, and that's the problem. Neither option seems feasible, right now.

It takes him a wretchedly long time from Minami's point of view to process the rest of that sentence, to understand what he's saying, and then he flushes, looks away,

"Since you were nine? Really?" god, now he's even more mortified about the poor showing. All of these people looking up to him and he couldn't even land a quad for them. This is awful.