Little Pieces in Search of A Bigger Picture

FFXIV Character Bios: Kai and Rigel Orion - A Tale of Two Brothers

RIGEL

I'm, like, the older brother. I came first. I'm just 10 months older, not even a year. Dad didn't waste any time, I'll give 'im that. But having Kai so soon after me, well, whoa! Mom's body didn't even have time to recover. So, after Kai was born, Mom couldn't have any more kids. Dad hated Kai after that and blamed it all on him. I didn't know that, man. Iwas, like, clueless.

But my old man loved me. Like, worshipped the ground I walked on, loved me. I liked sports, all sports. I was like what you call an all-around athlete. Big Kahuna on campus. It didn't matter that I could hardly read or write, I roller-skated through classes and goaled my way into college. Teachers did what my coaches told them to do. Stupid shits, all those goddamned coaches. And the ass-wipe teachers that let themselves get walked all over.

I'm not stupid. Well, not brain-wise, dudes. I was just having fun, and people dug it. Mom and even Dad made every match, every game. Kai came to some, but it wasn't his thing. And that's okay, 'cause we had the waves to bring us together. Those days were perfect, man. Pure bliss.

KAI

Ever felt like your Dad wished you had never been born? It sucks, sucks big time, all the time. The only son that Dad had was my brother Rigel. Rigel the perfect, Rigel the all-star, Rigel the star child. Me? I was invisible. Mom tried to tell me about how I should forgive Dad...tried to tell me when I was 5 years old! What the hell did I know? And why should I be the one to forgive?

I figured out early that if I didn't exist for Dad, well, he didn't exist for me. He never said 'good morning' to me or asked me how my day was, so I stopped sulking when I was about 11 years old. I was smart - really, Nobel-effing Prize-winner smart. When I won that scholarship to MIT, Dad was away on business. Mom finally gave up on trying to reach him.

I was 16 and going to MIT. And I was scared out of my mind. At Malibu High, students were either college-bound or hopeless. Thanks to his muscles, Rigel had gotten a full UCLA scholarship in his sophomore year. I had to work for mine. So when Mom asked me if I wanted to go to the beach to celebrate, my first thought was, "What, and hang around with a bunch of losers?"

But Mom had started drinking last year, knowing that Dad had been having affairs for the past 5 years. He'd abandoned her, in some ways even more hurtful than when he had abandoned me, in a sense. So I said yes. And when we got there, guess who was there? Right. Rigel was there with his beach-bum jock friends, drinking beer at 4 in the afternoon, and being a jerk to all the girls that were hanging all over him. And he acted like we weren't even there.

And then Mom gave me a present, and my world turned upside down - or...

RIGEL and KAI

...right side up, lil' bro. She gave him a surfboard. Our mom, who had always given Kai books and records and intellectual shit, gave him a waverider. Top of the line, too. When you picked it up, you almost dropped it!

Yeah, almost. But it was something so out of my comfort zone...

Oh, come on, bro...

...that it was - shit, Ry, I don't know...like it was intoxicating!

Like the best Maui Wowie, bro!

Stop, Ry, you know what I mean. So I found my courage, shucked down to my Speedo...

...and I thought, whoa, when did my lil' bro get such a killer bod?

I didn't just study or jerk off in my room, man. I took that weight set that you put out for the Salvation Army pickup 3 years ago. You didn't want it - Dad gave it to you not knowing you had a free lifetime membership at the Malibu Gold's Gym - and I was curious to see if I could build up my body.