#parbles

Here’s the latest in my Bible Communications series of videos. The aim of these videos is to help those involved in Bible teaching whether preachers, Bible study leaders or children and youth workers. Here we look at how the NT picks up on echoes from the OT. We use the parable of the Prodigal Son as a case study.

Junko leans forward over her sister's desk and says idly, "Yanno, I think Hagakure has a thing for you. You ever seen how he looks at you?" 

She rests her head on her folded arms to watch Mukuro push herself back in her chair, stand stiffly, and march across the room to where Hagakure sits. Junko catches his sloppy grin and the high angle of Mukuro's kick out of the corner of her eyes, but it's the resounding crack that really sticks with her. 

Togami excused himself without even taking a bite, just stood up and gave everyone this sweeping glare, and that was probably the smart thing to do, Naegi figures later. Fukawa's face fell right away when he left, but at least he didn't have to see Hagakure getting puke in his hair. 

The problem is that it looked good, you know? Like, not gourmet or whatever, but still something you could probably ingest and then go hey, wow, that was pretty nice. It wasn't growing anything, it didn't smell like death warmed over. Naegi didn't know what it was, exactly, but it looked like food, at least. No animal instinct in him warned him not to put that stuff in his mouth, anyway. 

He needs to sharpen up those survival instincts, it turns out. 

Fukawa's in tears, but so is Oowada, and they're clinging helplessly to each other like it might help them through this. Kirigiri's gone pale and quiet, more than she usually is anyway, staring at what's left on her plate as though if she looks away it might escape. It's a wreck, a mess, Asahina's fainted on the floor and Hagakure's shaking and muttering to himself, bits and pieces of phrases like 'what did we do to deserve this' and 'God forgive me.' 

The only one in good shape is Ishimaru, standing at the head of the table with his sleeves rolled up, gesturing with the serving spoon. 

"Honestly!" he says over the noise of sobbing and groaning. "Settle down, now! It was just a few brussels sprouts!"

"Are you for real right now," Sayaka says when he shows up at her door, and Leon sorta shrugs and goes yeah I guess I am. She rolls her eyes really hard but lets him in anyway. 

"How do you even do something like this," she asks him after she's sat him down in the desk chair that each of their rooms has. She's perched herself on the wooden head of her bed and she has her fingers carding through Leon's hair. "I mean, seriously? Bubblegum?"

"Bubblegum's practically a baseball tradition," Leon tells her. He hisses when she hits a tangle and pulls through it. "They even make special baseball gum, you know, I think you can get cards with it." 

"You hate baseball." 

"No I don't, I just act like I do."

Sayaka picks at a particularly big wad of gum that's wrapped around a chunk of his hair, makes a real ladylike noise like 'eugh,' then wipes her fingers off on his shoulder. "That doesn't even make sense, Leon." 

"Yeah it does," he grumbles. "You just don't get it." It makes a ton of sense, if you're him; he hates baseball, he just doesn't hate baseball at all. Like, he'd be pretty lost without it, but hell if he wants to play it.

Ok, it doesn't make any sense. 

Sayaka sighs heavily and he hears her stand up behind him. "Come on, we need to go get some peanut butter."

"Peanut bu-- the hell are you gonna do to me, serve me up for lunch?!"

"No way, you'd be way too gamey. It's for your hair, doofus." 

"Why the hell are you gonna put peanut butter in my hair?" 

She flicks him hard in the back of his head, then pulls on some of the gummed up strands of hair. "Gee, I wonder why. It's either that or we cut it off and you can look just like your cute magazine picture again."

He ends up going with her to the kitchen. She gets a jar of peanut butter and a spoon and sits him in front of a counter. He grimaces when she gets the first glob of it on his hair, and she says way too late, "By the way, you're not allergic to peanuts, are you?"

When she's got what feels like half his head smeared with peanut butter and he's sure that no amount of showering is gonna make him smell normal again, they hear footsteps and he jerks his head up and Asahina is staring openly at him. She at least stays quiet, for once -- she just pulls up her own chair and sinks slowly into it, rests her head in her hands and says, "go on." Sayaka does and Leon could punch them both. 

Sayaka starts rubbing the stuff firmly into his hair and he's gonna die of embarrassment and Asahina gets his attention and offers him a stick of gum. "Girls are fucking evil," he says, and Sayaka says "one is also doing your hair right now" and he shuts up. 

In the end, it works. They rinse the peanut butter out and he's gum-free, and he swears on his favorite guitar (his only guitar) that he'll never chew the stuff again. Asahina tells him that he smells like a sandwich and blows a bubble in her gum. He flips her off and she says, "careful, I'll get a bunch of kindergarteners to eat you!" He says they'd be smarter than her and she sticks her tongue out and Sayaka tells him to go shower, seriously, you really do smell like peanut butter. 

"And Leon?" she calls when he goes to leave. "What do you say?"

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Mom."