It is a striking juxtaposition between the two physicalities, one at its peak, and the other close to death.
Fa'amanu Brown's skin is flawless. The outline of his powerful torso glows silver in the panes of sunlight coming through the window.
His tattoos express his heritage warrior status and primordial beauty.
He holds his elderly, sick mum as she rests a towel over her bare chest.
Her body looks frail, hunched and her skin doesn't reflect the light anymore.
He runs his hands down her face. She plants little kisses on his forehead.
Their skin-to-skin intimacy sears into the psyche, reframing the mother-son relationship.
This moment is a snapshot of what Bulldogs backrower Brown calls his greatest achievement of his life: caring for his dying mother during her last months on earth.
He and his brothers cooked, cleaned and bathed their mum during four-hour shifts, "next to her bed", as she succumbed to lung cancer in 2020.
"The first time I washed my mum, and I had to undress her, I just cried, she cried, it was such an honour," he says.
"For us males to see a Polynesian female's body, it's deep …
"Their body is sacred."
This period in his life was atonement for his relationship with his mother and a rebirth of his self-identity.
It was the beginning of the end for his hero's journey, which began when the gifted young athlete left his complicated home in Christchurch for Sydney to pursue a contract in the NRL.
Brown was just 17 years old when he moved to Australia.
His trials and failures over the next 10 years would bring him to the edge of the abyss.
Now, the 28-year-old is open about his experiences, including depression, suicidal ideation, loss of identity, gambling and a litany of injury setbacks.
Brown recently recovered from a dislocated elbow from this year's Round 4 match against the Warriors.
It meant anther spell on the bench, but he wasn't fazed because resilience is his brand.
In 2022, Brown returned to the NRL after a three-year hiatus.
He is currently playing with a rehabilitated complex foot injury that not many people recover from.
In 2019, he broke the navicular bone in his right foot. It cracked three more times after that.
"There's three bones in your body that have limited blood supply, one of those is the navicular bone, and that's the one I broke," he says.
"After my second surgery they said I wasn't going to be able to run again."
Five different surgeons told him there was no hope, but he never gave up,
"I found a [surgeon] who worked on a lot of AFL players. It was 50-50 if it would heal. I took that chance and came good," he says.
Despite his NRL debut being almost 10 years ago, Brown has only played 50 or so first-grade games because of his injuries, which have included multiple concussions and a season-ending ACL.
"Through all my injuries, I got signed in England, the league below Super League, because no one wanted me," he says.
He had an injury-free season in the UK, with impressive stats, which landed him back in Australia with the NRL.
He signed with Wests Tigers and played 14 games in 2022.
Later that year, he was selected to represent Samoa at the Rugby League World Cup.
Shortly after the cup, he signed with Bulldogs for 2023, where he made four first-grade appearances before sustaining a dislocated elbow.
These are the bare facts of his rugby league career.
However, what Brown offers is so much more than that.
His raw honesty and vulnerability lifts the veil to the inner struggle of men like him, the stuff that usually remains unspoken.
His journey also shines a light on what young Pasifika athletes go through while they chase a lucrative first-grade contract.
A hero child is born
Brown is the youngest of nine brothers and sisters who grew up in a three-bedroom state home in Christchurch.
His parents immigrated from Samoa, and life was tough.
"My life was like Once We Were Warriors … [my siblings and I] used to just laugh about it. It was just the norm for us," he says.
"My parents didn't know any better. They came to New Zealand to give us a better life … but, from what they were taught and the way they were nurtured, led on to us.
"For us [now], it's about breaking the cycle of what our parents had gone through and the trauma I went through as a child."
Brown never felt alone growing up the baby brother of a large, Pasifika family.
He fondly recalls sharing a bedroom with his four brothers and says all his childhood experiences made him the man he is today.
However, the perceived pressure to deliver a lucrative contract from his athletic gifts, to better the family's position, was strong, and it started early.
"Sport was always more important than education," he says.
The call to adventure
The first time Brown felt truly alone was his first year in Cronulla, Sydney.
A depression set in.
"I think when you're in groups [of Polynesians] and when you're around your own family, you're stronger together," he says.
"And I felt like I was just on my own."
Brown says in the first year there were many times he wanted to give up,
"Rugby league wasn't hard," he says.
"I want people who understand who I am, who I can vent to, but I couldn't, because not many people who I knew in Cronulla had experienced what I had experienced in life."
His feelings of disconnection and homesickness became overwhelming.
This was compounded by learning to be an adult on his own.
Navigating simple things — such as money, cooking and cleaning — while dealing with his childhood trauma and trying to impress on the footy field was a heavy burden for the teen.
"I think I lost my identity and I think I lost who I was while being over here [in Australia] … not having my parents around, I was, like, 'Who am I?'" he recalls.
"When I was 19, there was one time when I didn't know how to open up … I wanted to quit.
"I went and signed papers at Cronulla Leagues Club … and I was, like, 'Man, I'm done. I want to go home or else I'm going to commit suicide'."
And one night he "almost tried" to take his own life,
"I'd just had enough of rugby league, I wanted to go home because I was homesick … everyone was in my ear trying to get me to stay … I couldn't hold my feelings in anymore," he says.
At 2am he entered the inky waters of a Sydney beach and swam as far as he could.
"'God, if you're going to take me, take me now because, man, I'm done'," he recalls thinking.
"But, for some reason, I floated on my back, swimming backwards back to the shore … I remember just crying."
Brown called his mum and told her what happened.
Distraught, she said to him, "I'd rather have you home than a contract."
These were the words Brown needed to hear.
"You know what, my mum's got me, I'll stick it out," he says.
This helped ease the pressure and he felt like he could fly again, and the very next week he debuted in the NRL with Cronulla Sharks.
Tests, allies and enemies
Still a teenager, Brown's new NRL contract meant his footy earnings jumped from $15,000 to $150,000.
"A lot of temptation comes through, then there's more pressure, more things that lower your self-esteem and confidence," he says.
Without a steady hand to guide him, Brown got caught up in drinking, partying, girls, lavish purchases and, eventually, gambling, which led him to another period of depression.
"I used all of them as a band-aid," he says.
After sending money home, he couldn't manage the rest.
"I ended up becoming broke. I went through a gambling phase. There was a point where I had to ask [the club to be paid] in an advance," he says.
"My mental state went downhill … why do I feel so empty?"
The road back and reward
It's been close to decade since Brown's NRL debut.
Intelligent and introspective, Brown has never stopped trying to understand and improve.
He now describes himself as "resilient, from all my experiences, and I'm proud".
"I had to find why my cup wasn't full," he says.
"I think, for myself, what I missed from 16 to my adult age now, [was] not having a full-time mum and dad … I found my reason."
And it was through his mother's stage four cancer diagnosis and returning home to culture and family that he truly, finally understood himself and felt whole again.
"There was a time where mum was going to be put into a rest home, where people look after them until they pass, or we had an option where me and my brothers look after our mum," he says.
At first, Brown appealed to his brothers to leave it to the professionals.
"But my brothers know the Samoan way more than me … My older brothers said: 'Trust me, you'll understand once you start looking after her."
It would become his defining moment of his life.
"This beats NRL debut, making whatever money … I don't think getting married will top this."
Sharing the lessons
The NRL has come a long way since Brown first signed with the Sharks nine years ago.
With almost half of NRL players identifying as Māori or Pasifika, wellbeing programs across the clubs have evolved to cater to core values of family, spirituality and culture.
Recently, there has been two NRL Pasifika and Māori Advisory Working Groups, along with cultural language courses, for players and multicultural rounds to ensure Pasifika and Māori voices are included and their identity is "safe".
Brown says it is less of a challenge to pursue a footy career without losing a sense of self today, but his advice to young players is to stay close to family,
"What keeps you grounded, what keeps who you are, true to yourself is your family … I think that was the most important thing my mum taught me," he says.
Listen to Fa’amanu Brown’s full conversation with Sam Wykes and Tinirau Arona on the ABC podcast Nesian Footy.
