Chapter Text
The crazy part about being an athlete - one that's big, anyway - is that Will doesn't actually care about most of it.
Well, that's not true. 'Not caring' about it would imply indifference. Will is not indifferent to the majority of what makes up figure skating. He actively dislikes it.
…which is why Will is currently sitting in another meeting with his coach's assistant and his agent with his mom outside, zoning out and wishing that skating were about skating instead of stupid arguments.
"-look, if we want to keep Will at a level of skating that lets him get to the Olympics again, we need to have him focusing fully on training. From my understanding, he'll already be graduating early - if we have Will just do his homework while being fully excused from school, or have him do private tutoring-"
"Will is less than three months from graduating. It doesn't make sense to pull him from school," his agent, Murray, says, sounding even more snarky than normal, which is saying something.
"Look, Beijing is less than a year away. We need Will to train, and for one thing, he's not going to be doing as well in the reduced amount of training from a lack of sleep because of trying to balance ten hours of school and eight hours of training a day. For another, he's going to lose sponsors - Lilly said he needs to train at least two hundred hours a month to maintain sponsorship, and Delta is already threatening to pull."
"We still have Nike, though," Will attempts to interject. "The Nike payment is-"
"Will, if you don't use it, you lose it," Kass sighs, looking over at him, apparently remembering that the subject of the conversation is sitting in the room and maybe has opinions on his own life. "You broke three world records in the world championships and are better than you were when you were fourteen. You need to practice. Sure, you can do a routine with a dozen axels, but if you don't practice doing those axels, you're going to fail when it actually matters."
"So I-" Will stutters for a second, struggling to find the words. "I can just go over to the rink and practice the routine after school. I don't need to drop out."
"We're not asking you to drop out, I'm asking you to do private lessons so that you can actually focus."
"I'm focused! I just-"
"Just going to lose everything you worked for? Will, you have to think this through."
Will looks over at Murray with the same panic that got him out of wearing a really awful costume that he felt uncomfortable in two months ago. "I literally won the world championship several times while I was going to school. I can finish school- it's just a few more months! I'll have, like, eight months after I finish school to train constantly, okay? I just need a little more time to get done."
"Listen to me," Kass says almost gently. "Most elite athletes don't get to go to a public high school at all. It's great that you've been able to go this long, and it's honestly mostly because you're talented enough that you haven't had to work as hard as some people would. But you need to make sacrifices if you want to get to the places that you're heading."
Will hates that he tends to cry whenever he's annoyed or upset or any kind of extreme emotion, because he's got a lump in his throat that won't stop getting thicker, and Will doesn't want to start crying in the middle of the millionth meeting trying to get him to stop school. "I already have made sacrifices for this. I just want to get my diploma and then I'll be able to spend all my time skating, okay?"
Murray shrugs at Will unapologetically. "Kid, you do need the sponsorships to get into the Olympics. You can't throw them all away. You gotta compromise sometimes."
"Then- can I reach out to Delta and Lilly or something? It's just a few more months. Every free second I'm spending training, you know that, and then I'm going to be done in May. I'm already graduating a year early, I'm working hard- look, I'm- I managed to win the championships while taking four AP classes. I can finish the last quarter of my last year of school. I can't even- I can't even participate yet, I'm still sixteen! I just need a little longer and then I'll practice twelve hours a day. I just need to finish school, okay? That's all I'm asking."
It's quiet for a minute, Kass and Murray looking at each other, but eventually, they stop looking at each other and look back over at Will.
"What do your credits look like?" Kass asks. "GPA, high school credits…"
"I, uh- I have to finish taking College English Two, calculus two-"
"Just tell me how many credits you need. Like… what classes."
"…college English and college math. I have a few more that I need to finish from last quarter-"
"Do you 'need to' or are you choosing to?"
Will looks back over at Murray helplessly, and he's quickly reminded of why he asked his mom's weird conspiracy-theorist friend to be his representation. "Look, the kid wants to finish taking his classes."
Kass sighs, looking even more annoyed than he usually is when Murray is in the room. "What classes exactly?"
"College English, college math, oil painting, studio art, and yearbook. I promise, it's a lighter course load, I'm only gonna be at school for six hours and I'm gonna work out during lunch-"
"What's your GPA?"
"…weighted, 4.6, unweighted, 3.9?"
"Get D's. Don't do the homework, just go to class and do the bare minimum and you'll be fine."
"But-" Will stutters again. "I'm not going to intentionally fail my classes."
"No, that would mean you couldn't graduate. What you need is to pass. Of those classes, which do you actually need to graduate?"
"I- I need all of them. I'm going to- I'll have enough for an associate's if I do well in my classes this term-"
"You need to sacrifice something. You can't go to school like a normal kid if you're not a normal kid, Will. You have to make hard choices - either you go to normal high school for precisely the classes you need to graduate from high school, not college, or you do private tutoring and you get to take all the classes you want. Your choice here."
"That's two extremes. There's something in the middle," Murray glares slightly. "Besides, kid needs college. Figure skating doesn't last forever. An associate's will buy him enough time that he can graduate college later on like a normal person and have a job after he inevitably stops being able to compete."
"You're right. Skating is finite. Which is why he needs to focus now instead of worrying about later."
"Or, wild idea, we just let him postpone the two hundred hours a month or whatever and have him practice an extra twenty hours a week this summer after he's, you know, done with school."
"I feel like you're ignoring the actual situation we're working with. Will needs a certain amount of training, and you can't exactly work out eighty hours a week with no injuries-"
"So we have him focus on endurance training. While he's in school, he does skating for, like, two hours a day, and then he works out in ways that strengthen muscles and joints to make him able to practice longer and harder for another two hours."
"He could use that time to practice more skating."
"I think-" Will attempts, but he's quickly talked over.
"I think that his mother should be in on this conversation, actually," Kass snaps.
Murray scoffs. "Really? Are you sure you want that? Because I can promise you, she's not going to agree with the apple of her eye dropping out of school or intentionally getting D's."
Will feels like he's about to have a panic attack, so he takes a deep breath. However, it doesn't cure the shakiness or how he feels like he's about to throw up, so he gets up, but even that seems off, his movements too fast and jerky for someone who's supposed to be the epitome of grace.
"Speaking of practice, I'm gonna go do that," Will says too fast, the words running together, and then bam, he's out of the room and past his mom sitting outside the door, heading straight to the rink downstairs for the only part of figure skating he actually enjoys.