The Minnesota Miracle [kirill kaprizov]

Chapter Six

"This sucks," I said as I sipped my white mocha.

Story chuckled. "You decided to major in mathematics, Kenzie." She told me.

I rolled my eyes. "You did too, you dumb shit," I retaliated with a smile on my face. "Though it isn't the math part,"

"Well, what is it then?" Story asked.

I stared at the white notecards with Russian and English on them. I frowned, but I think I was getting better. Just had hello, yes, and no memorized, but not the others.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed as I softly slammed the notecard with "good afternoon" against my laptop. "Russian sucks," I said.

Story laughed. "Oh, that's what you're talking about. Imagine what Kirill thought when he first started learning English," she giggled as she typed something onto her computer.

"He started learning English in high school, not when he was fuckin' twenty years old," I said.

"And he is still learning it," she responded.

I stared at the notecards in front of me. Learning a language was difficult—but what was even more difficult was the fact that Kirill and I have a small language barrier that wasn't easy to overcome. Though he did know a lot of English, it was just the basics. Which is alright, considering I can still understand him even with his hard accent.

"I'm never going to be fluent in this," I said, then Story glanced up to lock her eyes with mine.

She sighed as she lowered her laptop cover. "Kenzie, you just need to take things easy. If you don't believe that you can do this, do you think the relationship with Kirill is going to work out?" She asked me.

I thought about that for a second. The fact that I'm about to give up on learning a new language is almost like I'm giving up on Kirill. I never want to give up on him, even if we have this small language barrier.

I sighed. "I just have to treat this like Spanish," I said as I looked back down at the notecards in my hands. "I just can't half-ass this because I'm actually going to be using this," I added with a soft chuckle.

She smiled. "There you go. That's the kind of mentality you need to have," she told me.

I let myself smile at this too. Story has been quite the help through this whole situation with trying to handle both a relationship and a strong friendship, especially when that relationship is with a foreign professional athlete.

"Is Kirill going to be testing you on those terms?" She asks.

I rolled my eyes. "He wants to know if I'm learning and if I'm actually studying them," I said.

She chuckled. "As he should be," she said.

I laughed before I got back to studying both my calculus and Russian sets.

—

I flipped on the Wild/Stars game on my computer and listened to the pregame while I did homework.

"Will the Stars be able to snap the Wild's five-game winning streak, or will the Wild be able to defeat the Stars and continue their hot streak? Tune in later to watch the Stars and Wild, only on ESPN." The announcer said before it cut to commercials.

I yawned as I stared at the problems laying out in front of me.

"Hey!" Corey exclaimed as she opened and shut our door as she came in.

I smiled as I glanced up at her. "'Sup," I said.

She chuckled as she hung her jacket on our hanging coat rack on our door. "What are you watching? Ooh, are the Wild playing yet?" She asks.

I softly chuckled. "It's pregame and on commercial right now. I just need to get my homework done," I said as I pointed my pencil to my laptop playing a Burger King commercial.

"What's this?" She asks as he picks up the banded bunch of Russian notecards off of the desk. "You're learning...Russian? Is that right?"

I nodded my head. "Doesn't hurt to learn a new language that isn't Spanish or French," I said. "Russian seems a bit challenging so I decided why not?"

Corey smirked. "Or the fact that your boyfriend speaks it as a first language," she said.

I frowned, but I let a small smile appear on my face. "Yeah, that too." I responded as I punched a couple numbers into my calculator to get my product.

"Oh yeah, how is Kirill? I know the two of you were hanging out Friday and Saturday night," she says as she sits on her bed.

I shrugged. "Same old. I got to meet his teammates," I said.

Corey smiled. "Oh yeah, how was that? I bet pretty damn cool,"

"It actually was pretty scary. Other than Mats, the rest of the team was kinda...eh," I said.

She laughed as the suited men came back on the screen to keep talking about today's matchup and even showing some scores around the league.

The guy in the all black suit started talking, then Kirill appeared with a headset on while his teammates were skating around the ice during warmups.

"We have Kirill Kaprizov now to talk about how the Wild have been doing while on their hot streak, Kirill," the guy in the black suit said before Kirill began talking.

"Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's amazing what the guys can do when we all work together. We just gotta...keep doing what we're doing and hopefully we get the win tonight," Kirill said, and he was smiling the entire time.

"Mind telling us about what you are doing personally in order for the Wild to hopefully secure your win tonight?" Another guy asks, this time, it was the one in a gray tuxedo with a blue tie.

Kirill hesitated. "Uh," he chuckled. "Shoot puck and hope for the best," he said, then everyone started to break down into laughter.

The guy in the black suit spoke again. "There must be more to that, being a good defender?"

Kirill laughed again. "No, no," he said. "Shoot puck," he repeated.

"Kirill says shoot the puck," The guy in the blue tie returned. "I'd agree with him,"

Everyone laughed again.

"Alright, Kirill. We'll let you get back to warmups."

Kirill smiled again. "Thank you for having me," he said before his camera disappeared and the guys came back on full screen.

I smiled as I looked back down at my halfway-done, half-assed calculus homework. Thank God I had a couple weeks left—I was starting to get lazy.

Or perhaps I had something else to worry about other than college.

"Math sucks," I groaned as I laid my head on the textbook and looked at Corey.

She laughed. "You decided to major in mathematics," she told me.

"Yeah, 'cause I thought it would be fun," I said, though I did enjoy math. I just wanted to be in Dallas watching Kirill have another great night and spend more time with him.

I decided to shoot him a text even though he wouldn't see it until he got back to their hotel.

Hey. I know we haven't had the time to talk or anything, but I wanted to wish you good luck on the game tonight. Wish I could be in Dallas w you :(

I smiled before I got back to doing my homework and listened to the first puck drop of the game.