Page 38 of Kings of Cruelty

I think I’ve got the hang of it and I write out the first set of vocabulary. Of course, once I read those words out loud, Yuri corrects my pronunciation again.

“Yuri,” I say with irritation. “I’m going to have an accent, okay?”

Yuri frowns. “But it sounds wrong.”

I glare at him. “You and Kotya have accents in your English too. It’s fine. As long as people can understand me.”

“But I said I’d help you learn,” Yuri says stubbornly. “And I can’t help you memorize the letters or the words.”

I turn the page to where it has the first dialogue practice. The Cyrillic has Latin letters above it and a translation below to help newbies, so I painstakingly read, “Hello. My name is Anya. Nice to meet you.”

Yuri purses his lips like he wants to say something, then he leans in closer to read the next sentence, far faster than I could have managed. “Hello. I am Mikhael. Nice to meet you too.”

“Slow down,” I complain. “You need to sound things out. I can’t tell which word is which, and I’m trying to learn to read and speak at the same time.” Somehow.

This had seemed like a good idea in theory, but I’m getting the feeling it’s not going to go as smoothly as I’d hoped.

We keep going through the dialogue, reading and repeating, and both of us get increasingly frustrated as we go. It stings that I’m not instantly catching on like I do in the rest of my classes, and I wish I’d downloaded one of those language apps.

Maybe I should.

“Okay,” I say reluctantly when we finish the small dialogue. “Maybe we do need to go back to the alphabet… and the pronunciations.”

Yuri makes a discontented sound. “You’re doing fine.” He rakes his hand through his hair. I think he forgot how short it is now, because the movement is awkward. “When I was learning English, the teacher would make fun of my pronunciation.”

I glance at him. “That’s… stupid. What, did they expect you to get it instantly or something? I can’t even imagine what a teacher would think of my Russian pronunciation.” I smirk. “Seeing as how even you keep making this face every time I mispronounce something.”

“No. She made everybody repeat after her in a group, and then she singled me out and made me repeat it five times on my own. She said it was to ‘help’ me but the others in the class wouldsnicker and laugh.” Yuri’s expression turns darker. “I didn’t even want to learn English. It was mandatory, though.”

“Languages were always optional for me,” I admit. “I never really had an interest in any of them.” I look down at the book, then nudge him in the side, wanting to see him smile. “But how can I eavesdrop on the three of you when I can’t understand what you’re saying? I don’t have a choice but to figure this out now.”

Yuri starts laughing. “You want to eavesdrop? Good luck. It took me two years in the US to feel confident in my English.”

“Yeah,” I say glumly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” I resist the urge to close the book. “I don’t know why I expected this to be easier.” I take a deep breath, let it out, then stare down at the page again. “Okay. Let’s try this again. Gotta start those two years somewhere, right?”

“We can watch Russian TV shows,” Yuri says, more excited now. “And I will give you some Russian music.”

I groan and shake my head. “I definitely won’t be able to understand music, Yuri. It’s hard enough to catch all the words when they’re singing in English.”

“Okay, I will tell you how much I want to fuck you in Russian.” Yuri leans in and whispers something against my ear in Russian, and even though I don’t understand him, I blush anyway.

“Why is it that everythingnotin English sounds sexy?” I ask. “You could’ve told me that an apple is red in Russian and I’d still be thinking it sounded hot.”

“That’s good, because I said, ‘Nice to meet you. I am from Saint Petersburg,’” Yuri says with amusement.

“You did not,” I say, dismayed. “We just went over that! And I know you didn’t say Saint Petersburg.” I run my finger along the line of text on the book where it says “nice to meet you.”

This really is going to be harder than I expected it to be.

“I can hack into a bank,” I whine. “But I can’t say or understand ‘nice to meet you’ in Russian.”

“I didn’t say Saint Petersburg. I saidSankt Peterburg,” Yuri says, and he pronounces the vowels so differently it’s no wonder I didn’t catch it the first time.

“Also, should you be saying that you can—” he says a few words in Russian, “in public? Somebody might overhear.”

I groan. “No one’s paying attention,” I say, gesturing around the little cubicle we’re in. “They’re all too busy cramming for final exams. Which is probably what I should be doing.”

Yuri leans in closer. He answers in Russian, and my heart is racing faster—until I pay attention to what he’s saying. “My name is Yuri. I am from Russia.”

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