Disclaimer: I claim no right to Yu Yu Hakusho, nor any related characters or merchandise, and I make no profit from the writing or distribution of this piece of fiction.
It's a stroke of dumb luck that Yusuke finds it at all, given how long it's been since he's seen anything man-made that hasn't already been plundered or simply broken out of sheer spite. Of course, there's really no way to tell if something's gotten into it and eaten away at the workings - and he'd have no way to fix it, he's never been any good at these little fiddly mechanical things - but he takes it anyway, with only the faintest of hopes that it will actually work.
He takes it back to where he's been camped out for the past few weeks, but it's not until he fires up the generators for the night that he plugs it in, hits the 'Power' button, and is pleasantly surprised when it emits soft clicking noises that bring back all sorts of fond memories.
And yet, even when it's been sitting there for thirty minutes - he knows that's how long it's been, because the readout on the front is now blinking '12:30', and he's been watching the numbers change in something near awe as he realizes how long it's been since he's had any way of telling the actual time - no longer clicking but only humming softly, just as it should, he's loathe to try and actually use it, for fear that it will break down and chew up what he puts inside. He doesn't know if he could take that. He doesn't know what's on it, of course, but the hope has kept him going all this time - the hope that maybe he'd find a way to watch it, that on it are some sort of answers, some link back to life before everything fell apart.
Fifteen more minutes of sitting and staring, and Yusuke can't take it anymore. He has to know what's on the tape, and that's worth the risk he's taking of irreparably damaging it. He slides the tape into the slot on the front of the player, watches the little plastic cover fall back into place behind it, and presses 'Play'.
For a moment, he's not sure what he's watching, as the video fades in and out, static buzzing over the picture. And then, the picture starts to clear, and Yusuke hears a voice - one he's only heard a few times before, but it's no less familiar for that.
"'Mom, come on - give the camera a smile, at least?'"
Shuuichi's voice. Hatanaka Shuuichi, with his warm brown eyes and his adoring gaze. And there on the screen, through the film of the remaining, persistent static, is Shiori, smiling at the camera with a flush on her cheeks, and asking her stepson what he's doing.
She's in the kitchen, her hands elbow deep in the sink, soapy water floating just in sight. Her apron is printed with a flowery, summer pattern, and Yusuke's heart gives an unexpected pang at the memory - he remembers seeing that apron on her, remembers the bright summer sunlight coming in through the window over the sink, remembers her smiling at him and offering him some of the warm cookies she'd just pulled out of the oven.
Shuuichi tells her that he got some school project, some creative thing, and he'd found the old videocamera tucked away in a box. Seemed easy enough. And Shiori laughs - a bright, soft sound - and tells him that's fine, but it's nearly time for dinner, so will he fetch his brother?
Shuuichi agrees, and Yusuke finds himself holding his breath. But the camera stays on, moving unsteadily through a house Yusuke knows well - he spent many a night there, before - and to the door to a room he knows even better. Shuuichi's hand appears, knocks on the door with a hollow sound, and Yusuke knows that there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for the sound of the voice that calls faintly to come in.
And there, sitting bent over his desk and writing in the light of the desk lamp, is Kurama - and Yusuke's seeing him for the first time in the months since this all began. It's painful, more so than he could have imagined it would be, but it's also more wonderful than he would have expected.
Vaguely, he hears Shuuichi's voice telling his stepbrother that dinner is ready, that their mother wants them both downstairs, but when Kurama looks up into (past, really, at his stepbrother, but it's easy enough to forget that) the camera and smiles, it's all too easy for Yusuke to pretend that it's him Kurama is smiling at. That they're together again: that they're in his room, or at the arcade, or with the rest of the team, and he's just said something (he'd be running his mouth, just like always - it's always moved a little faster than his brain does), and Kurama's looked at him with that same fond smile.
Shuuichi keeps the camera on his stepbrother as they walk down the stairs together, and even though the picture's starting to fade again, and Shuuichi's steps are shaking the camera around in a way that's making Yusuke's eyes hurt, he keeps watching. He watches all they way up until the camera swings back to Shiori at the dinner table, and she smiles and asks Shuuichi to put it away and eat, drinking in the sight of Kurama.
And then the screen goes black. Yusuke thinks about getting up, about pressing the 'Rewind' button, about going back and pausing the video on that shot of Kurama's smile and letting the television suck the generators dry. He wouldn't mind, he doesn't think, staring at that until the lights die and the darkness creeps in to tear him apart.
But he can't move. He just sits and stares at the blank screen and lets his thoughts dance around the knowledge of how much he misses his team, his friends, his old life - without ever actually touching on it, because he knows that would simply hurt too much. And it's while he's still thinking about this that the screen suddenly blares into static again.
He flinches at the unexpected noise and leans forward to shut the tape off, but as his finger touches the power switch, he thinks he hears something. A voice, under the static. Kurama's voice.
Desperately, he fumbles with the volume, raising it to a level that threatens to leave his sensitive demon ears ringing for the next week. But though the static gets louder, the voice is no easier to hear. Fighting back the frustrated urge to simply throw a fist into the center of the screen, he reaches forward again to lower the volume to a bearable level - but this time, when his fingers graze the knob, he feels a sort of jolt go through him.
Immediately, Yusuke pulls his hand back and pops the finger in his mouth, assuming the old TV has shorted out and electrocuted him. But a moment later, he realizes that his finger doesn't hurt at all - and when he pulls it out to look at it, there isn't any visible damage. And what's more, he also realizes that there's a scent in the air. Subtle, but so familiar he can nearly taste it - the freshness of a rose in bloom, the warm earth revealed by freshly-turned soil.
He knows what he has to do, then - and he mutters a soft curse that this tape would be for him, and not someone more suited for the task, like Kuwabara. But now that he thinks about it, he realizes that he should have known all along. It was just too easy, the way he came across this tape, laid out on Kurama's desk in a way that was clearly designed to look careless, but must have been quite deliberate.
Yusuke rewinds the tape to just before the static starts, and lets it play while he carefully raises his Spirit Energy levels, trying to amplify his Spirit Awareness. It's a delicate process, requiring that he slowly increase his output of power, but pull it back into himself as soon as it is released and allow it to resonate through his body - and one he's never been any good at.
He's so determined not to screw it up, that he takes it a little too slowly, and by the time he's gotten his Awareness up to the proper levels, Kurama's message has already started playing through.
'...-nly hope you find this. There's not a lot of information coming through Spirit World, which you may or may not know, so I'm going there to try and figure out just what this is, and why it's happening. I'm moving my family to a safe place beforehand, so there's no need to worry about any of us.'
'I know you'll be safe, but I hope that your family and friends will be, too - and that we'll all find each other when...if, I suppose, if things ever calm down.'
'Look after the others, if you can - I'm going to try to get in touch with Hiei and make sure he's somewhere we can find him later. If I can, I'll send along any messages I have, or that anyone here might have for you.'
Yusuke's breathing heavily from effort at this point, and the long pause that follows that last sentence makes him consider releasing the hold on his Spirit Energy. He's just about decided when Kurama's voice sounds again, in one last thought that dispels any lingering doubts Yusuke might have had about the fact that this tape was meant for him.
'And Yusuke? Hold on. I swear to you that I'm coming back. So you just stay alive and wait for me.'
The static is just static again after that, and Yusuke slowly lets his energy levels drop down to their baseline. He'll have to move again soon, he knows that - that little display probably alerted everyone within a three-mile radius - but suddenly, that prospect doesn't seem so bad. He had a good set-up here, to be sure, but there's no reason he can't find something just as good somewhere else.
And the key is to keep moving. To stay alive. To wait for Kurama.
Because he's coming back. He's alive, and out there, somewhere, and all Yusuke has to do is keep living until they find each other again.