The last days of summer brought boys back to Pinehall in waves — slamming doors, dragging duffel bags, filling the corridor with noise and cologne and the specific chaos of teenage males reclaiming territory. Yosuke watched from room 36, door cracked two inches.

Adrian Thompson arrived loudest, built like a fire hydrant, picking at a callus on his palm while calling Yosuke "China boy" until Erik corrected him so coldly that Adrian's neck went red and he didn't try again. Calvin O'Brien had the same shade of red hair as Nurse Wilkes, which made Yosuke's chest ache in a way he couldn't explain. Calvin was nice — asked questions, lent him a pencil, didn't stare. Justin Kim talked in short jabs, never finishing sentences around Yosuke, always finding somewhere else to look. Like Yosuke was a stray dog that might bite.

He stayed in his room mostly. Read his books. Sorted Erik's sock drawer twice.

Then one evening someone left the common room TV on. Some old black-and-white film — a woman in a hat, rain on cobblestones, violins swelling. Yosuke drifted out of room 36 like a moth to glass, crossed the hall, and sat down on the carpet six inches from the screen.

He didn't blink for twenty minutes.

When Leon found him, Yosuke's face was wet. Not crying exactly — more like his eyes had forgotten how to close.

"What is this?" Yosuke whispered, not looking away. The woman was dancing now. "She's inside the box. How is she inside the box?"

Leon looked at the TV. Looked at Yosuke. Looked at Erik, who'd appeared in the doorway with his toothbrush.

"Get your shoes," Leon said. "We're going to Rewind Rentals."

The green neon ticked and buzzed overhead. Shelves stretched floor to ceiling, hundreds of plastic cases lined up in rows — people holding guns, people kissing, people running from explosions.

Yosuke stopped three steps inside the door. His mouth fell open.

"What are all these?"

"Movies, dude. You pick one, take it home, put it in the machine, and it plays on the TV."

"All of them are different stories?"

"Yeah."

"How many are there?"

Leon looked at the walls. The ceiling. The sheer volume of human storytelling crammed into one room. "Thousands?"

Yosuke made a sound like he'd been punched.

He reached for the nearest case — Mrs. Doubtfire — and turned it over, reading the back with the intensity of someone decoding scripture. "This man dresses as a woman to see his children." He looked up. "Is this a tragedy?"

"It's a comedy," Justin said from the returns counter.

"But his family is broken."

Justin paused. "I... huh."

Yosuke set it down carefully and moved to the next. Then the next. Fingers tracing each spine the way he touched everything — like the world was a museum and he hadn't been told not to. Leon trailed him, half-watching, half-drumming his fingers on Die Hard.

"Dude, we're gonna be here all night."

"The W's are mixed with the V's." Yosuke had stopped, frowning. "Someone put Waterworld next to Vampire in Brooklyn."

"It's a video store, not the Library of Congress."

But Yosuke was already rearranging — sliding cases left and right with quiet precision, realigning the alphabet. Leon groaned.

"Hey, what's behind there?" Yosuke had noticed the beaded curtain in the back corner.

"Nothing." Leon grabbed his sleeve. "Don't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's adult stuff."

"I'm almost sixteen."

"Not that kind of adult."

Yosuke tilted his head. "What kind?"

"The naked kind, Joskey," Erik said flatly from the new releases wall.

"Oh." Yosuke considered this. "Why do they need a curtain?"

"To protect society," Erik said.

"From naked people?"

"Can we please just pick a movie," Justin said, ears red.

Erik held up a case — Swedish film, a farmhouse on the cover, actors Yosuke didn't recognize. "Änglagård. It won four Guldbagge awards."

"Speak American, dude," Adrian said.

"It translates roughly to... House of Angels." Erik turned the case over. "It's about a young woman who inherits a farm in rural Sweden and disrupts the entire village. It's funny, actually. Very sharp."

"Does she get naked?" Adrian asked.

"She does not."

"Hard pass."

Calvin produced a D20 from his jacket pocket — forest green, chipped at one corner. "Dice decides. New kid rolls."

Yosuke took the die. Counted the faces.

"What happens if I roll a one?"

"Adrian picks. So don't."

He rolled. Fourteen.

"That's you, new kid." Calvin checked a crumpled list — names mapped to numbers in handwriting so small it might have been printed by ants.

Yosuke walked the aisles alone. Past horror, past romance, past foreign where Erik lingered with his Änglagård. He stopped in action/adventure, pulled a case, and brought it back.

Point Break. Keanu Reeves mid-jump, ocean and sky blurring behind him.

"The back says he learns to surf and robs banks and jumps from an airplane." Yosuke held it against his chest. "I want to experience all of those things."

Leon grinned — the wide one, the real one. "Solid pick."

Later, the common room transformed into a sardine can of teenage boys, all elbows and snack-grabbing hands. Twelve boys crammed themselves into every available space—draped over the sagging couch, sprawled across the carpet, perched on stolen dining hall chairs.

When Keanu appeared shirtless, a chorus of exaggerated whistles and "Oh baby!"s filled the room. Justin clutched his chest and pretended to swoon.

"I'd let him arrest me any day," someone called out, earning a storm of laughter and wadded-up napkins.

Yosuke, curled in his usual blanket nest by the radiator, found himself cataloging reactions: how Calvin's ears turned red during kissing scenes, the way Marcus punched shoulders a bit too hard when making jokes about "bromance." Most interesting was Leon, who developed a sudden fascination with his fingernails whenever Patrick Swayze and Keanu shared intense eye contact.

The famous finale approached. "Here it comes!" someone shouted. When Keanu aimed his gun at the sky, trigger pulled, bullets spent in futile rebellion, the room erupted. Bodies leapt up, spilling snacks and re-enacting the scene with finger guns.

"Dude, I totally came the first time I saw this scene!" Adrian declared, finger poking his nose.

"Came where?" Yosuke asked, tilting his head.

The room went silent for a beat before exploding. "Over your mom's bed!" Adrian howled, high-fiving Calvin so hard he dropped his glasses while others collapsed in hysterics. Someone choked on their soda.

Through the chaos, Yosuke noticed how Leon's laugh came a beat too late, how Erik's eyes rolled ceiling-ward with practiced disdain from his corner spot.

"I still don't understand," Yosuke whispered to no one in particular, making the boys laugh even harder.

Some mysteries of teenage boyhood, it seemed, would require further observation.