#KAINOA GIL ❮ character study ❯

[surfscraped]

‷ heads up ; if you hear NINA by ELLA LUNA blaring, it’s most likely KAINOA 'KAI' GIL making their way down the shore ! they’re 23 years old and celebrate their birthday on 10/30 - i knew they were a SCORPIO ! especially since they’re very BEGUILING and IMPETUOUS. they are from KOHALA, HI, staying in FROG HOLLOW and are currently working as a BARTENDER AT BEACH CREEK OYSTER BAR AND GRILLE and a SURF INSTRUCTOR, here at the cape. they always did remind me of mile-high stack of unread books, paint-splattered jeans, and staying up still sunrise.‷

hey, everyone ! i’m gel (she/they), i’m 25, and this is my little goob kai :)  (i know it’s long but i promise you don’t really need to read it all)

T R I G G E R   W A R N I N G S :  ----

Q U I C K   F A C T S –

full name: kainoa ‘kai’ gil. nickname: kai. age: 23. gender: cis woman. pronouns: she/her/hers. sexuality: lesbian. relationship status: single. place of birth: kohala, hawai’i. current residency: frog hollow – cape may, new jersey. parents: mother – koa noelani gil (formerly koa noelani).            father – noah gil (deceased). siblings: younger sister (- 5 1/2 years). children: none. occupation: bartender at beach creek oyster bar and grille; surf instructor. faceclaim: auli’i cravalho.

B A C K G R O U N D – (cw : death of parent; illness)

tl;dr – born in hawai’i, father passed away when she was young, and her mother soon after found out she was pregnant. due to their finances and growing costs of living on the island, they were essentially forced to pack up their home and they landed in cape may. while kai had the option of leaving for college (great test scores and grades + childhood traumatic event really opened up a lot of doors), she decided to stay close to her family. she dropped out two years in when her younger sister got sick. now her sister’s recovered, but she’s not exactly itching to go back to school. so instead, she took up a couple jobs to help support her mother with the hospital bills and now it’s almost 3 years later and she’s not really sure if there’s something else she should be doing or even if she wants there to be.

kai, born KAINOA MAKA GIL, was the pride and joy of her parents, koa and noah gil. she was born in the northern part of kohala,  hawai’i. her father was a rancher and her mother worked for a horseback tour company. they weren’t well off by any means, but for a few years, they lived comfortably in the place her mother had been raised. when she was FIVE YEARS OLD, she remembers her mother taking her to see her father at the hospital. she only remembers seeing him twice after that, once was the last time he held her and the other was at his funeral. all she really understood was that he wasn’t coming back.

they made it work for a little bit. her uncle had traveled from the mainland to come to the funeral and he stayed for a few weeks to help with the house and take care of kai. but with his own family to provide for, he couldn’t stay very long. the night before he was set to leave, kai’s mother found out she was pregnant. much of the symptoms she’d chalked up to grief but after seeing the doctor at the insistent of her brother, she couldn’t deny it. she was going to have another child. as elated as kai was to have a little sibling, it was hard for her at such as young age to console that with the knowledge that her father wasn’t going to be there for them.

for a few months, her mother continued working despite brother’s wishes, but there was really no choice with having to provide for the home and take care of kai and making sure there was no pregnancy issues. but it was a matter of time before she could no longer work with the baby coming. she threw herself into preparing the house for both the baby and inevitable guests. kai’s uncle managed to come to the island for a few weeks along with his family to make sure that koa had support at such an important time.

after kai’s little sister was born, it was only a matter of time before their mother inevitably made the decision to move to the mainland. with the rising costs of living on the island, coupled with the household income getting slashed in half and the addition of another person to care for, it was no longer feasible to stay in their home. through the help of a family friend, she got a position as an elementary school teacher in cape may. with 7-year old kai and 6-month old kalea in tow, koa packed up her childhood home and made her way across the mainland to cape may, new jersey.

they moved in with the family friend, and kai noticed how her mother no longer looked as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. so she tried her best to keep it that way. throughout elementary and middle school, kai was an excellent student, even being placed into the advanced academics programs. however, she was always a bit restless, always doing things too fast (regardless of whether or not she does it right). while it hadn’t steered her too far off the track when it came to her grades, it still led to long talks with her mother during parent-teacher conferences. her tests and essays were above average but it was clear she’d rush through them by the amount of points she’d miss on little mistakes. she would sort of flit and out of paying attention in class, often being chastised for pulling out a book to read during a lesson or starting the assignment before the teacher had finished providing instructions.

she’d channel this restless energy when playing youth club soccer, and she was heavily invested in her art and music classes. her father had been an artist, too, is what her mother told her. it was the closest she’d felt to him since he was alive. and whenever she wasn’t painting or at practice, she was helping take care of kalea. kai and her mother fell into a routine. just before kai started high school, the three of them moved into a home in frog hollow. as grateful as koa was to the family friend that took them in, she knew raising a teenager and a pre-teen wasn’t really something she wanted to saddle them with.

in high school, kai had much of the same issues and every teacher was beginning to sound like a broken record – too much energy, not enough energy, too fast, not paying enough attention, great grades, NOT ENOUGH, TOO MUCH – and it led to too many calls home than she would’ve liked. she took up surfing a few years earlier and it, along with too many hours painting in the art studio, became the best ways to settle her mind. she even joined a few surfing competitions, though she never actually won. by the grace of whatever being there was out there, she’d graduated high school with stellar grades (and a thick file) and was faced with numerous offers to schools along the east coast. the last thing she wanted to do was move far away from her mother, but upon her mother’s insistence to take the opportunities she had been given, they both agreed on temple university. while it was around 2 hours away, it gave both kai and koa comfort to know she was never too far away. not to mention the burden lifted by her full scholarship.

college had been much more her speed, though that may have been because she was finally getting to study shit she actually liked and was interested in. while she wasn’t necessarily at the top of her class, college and the city gave her numerous outlets for art and her energy, in general. she visited home during breaks but grew to love the independence that school gave her. it seemed like everything had finally fallen into place for her.

she remembers being woken by a call, 9 or 10am, she wasn’t sure. it was a week before finals and she had definitely been sleeping later than a regular person’s circadian rhythm liked. it was the family friend, calling from the hospital. her sister had passed out in the middle of class and as much as she urged kai not to worry, that kalea came to quickly and the hospital was just precautionary, it did nothing to dissuade kai from borrowing a friend’s car and speeding down the 94 miles to cape may.

it took a few days of tests to find out that kalea was ill, with something that would take months of recovery. the good news was there the survival rates were pretty good, so long as kalea’s body responded well to treatment. despite not wanting to, kai let herself be forced back to school (partly by her family, partly by her friend who kindly lent her their car). as hard as she tried, she couldn’t focus and it showed in her semester grades. it was halfway through being back home for semester break that she decided to take a semester off. her sister and her mother would be her priority.

NOW: that semester off turned into her dropping out for the foreseeable future when her sister took longer to recover than they’d hope. but now it’s almost three years later and her sister is fine, but leaving to go back to school had quickly fallen to the bottom of kai’s list. so she took up a couple jobs and decided she’d make herself useful if she was gonna stick around. those hospital bills definitely aren’t going to pay themselves. she says it’s because she wants to be there for her family just in case something happens again, but part of her thinks it’s because she doesn’t really know what she should do with her life, with or without a degree. so for now her days are filled with surfing lessons while her nights have her slinging drinks behind a bar. when she finds the time, she paints, even sells a piece or two. maybe that’s enough.

A E S T H E T I C S   /   P E R S O N AL I  T Y –

she sort of gives off a mix between surfer/sk8r boi and artist. like the cargo pants, oversized tees, usually with a beanie. very casual. not a fan of dressing up and you’ll probably see her wearing an aloha shirt at whatever formal functions she’s been roped into.

she’s a bit of an insomniac, so it’s not unusual to see her out on the water at sunrise or just riding her longboard down the street after a shift at the bar. it’s any wonder how she gets any rest, tbh.

she loves reading but sometimes she’s more like a book collector than a reader with the amount of them stacked on her desk and nightstand and really anywhere she can put them. as fast of a reader as she is, she’s also very easily distracted and will often hop from book to book and end up finishing neither.

beguiling – interesting or attractive, but perhaps not to be trusted; when she wants to, she can certainly turn up the charm. it’s probably what gets her so many tips at work. the problem with her charm is that it so often appears as if she’s hiding something it. whether that’s her inability to figure out what she actually wants or how lost she often feels, who knows?

impetuous – likely to do something suddenly, without considering the results of your actions; the problem with not knowing what you want long term is that you tend to sort of just do what you want in the short term. this rash decision making probably get hers into more trouble than she knows, but the lack of any real consequences hasn’t exactly made her change her ways.

if it wasn’t clear by now, she’s a big family gal. her family is the most important thing to her, especially after everything, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her family happy and healthy and supported. unfortunately, this mentality (and her dropping out as a result), has led to a strained relationship with her sister. despite kai’s attempts to change her mind, kalea blames herself for kai never finishing school. and this guilt has only increased tenfold with her being set to go off to college next year.

W A N T E D   C O N N E C T I O N S –

E X E S !  she’s a bit of a stereotypical, flaky artist type so she’s probably broken more hearts than she knows. it’s doubtful any of these relationships lasted any longer than a year, but it’s possible that some could’ve been more serious than kai let on.

R I D E   O R   D I E !  literally her best friend(s) till the end. whether or not they just really hit it off a couple years ago or they’ve been friends since they met, these are the kind of friends that kai essentially considers family. and we know how she feels about her family.

C H I L D H O O D   F R I E N D S !  basically these are people she met when she first got to cape may and they hit it off and practically grew up to together. they don’t necessarily still have to be friends now because people grow apart and stuff but she’ll always have a fondness for them since they were probably some of the first people she met in town.

C O L L E G E / C I T Y   F R I E N D S ! anyone she met at college or in philly! they don’t necessarily have to have stayed in touch either.

F A V O R I T E   C L I E N T S !  either the bar or surfing lessons. they can be regulars or just people that have stuck out/

C O - W O R K E R S !  other people at beach creek oyster bar and grille or some other surf instructors.

E N E M I E S !  like i said, kai’s probably gotten herself in trouble with a lot more people than she knows. it would be a shock to absolutely no one if she’s made a couple of enemies.

F A M I L Y   C O N N E C T I O N S !  could be friends of her mother (and/or other teachers she works with), people who know her sister, etc.

A N Y T H I N G !  if there’s anything else your beautiful mind can think of , pls lmk and plot with me !  i love plots and i want all the plots so pls

so sorry for making this super long and im sure i still forgot something which blows, but here she is !

[surfscraped]

tag  drop !!