"As I was saying, my uncle had twins when I was five years old. When I first saw them, I was so mesmerized by just looking at them that I instantly made an oath to protect them with my life. All the adults in the room started laughing," Liam recounted, his voice tinged with nostalgia.
"One of the twins had red eyes like raging fire, and the other had blue eyes as deep as the ocean, just like yours," Liam continued, his gaze fixed on the undulating waves as if his past unfolded in their gentle rhythm.
Lea's brow furrowed as Liam delved deeper into his story.
"I was very close to them, especially their firstborn, the one with the blue eyes. She used to always cling to me like a koala, and even our parents used to tease me, saying they would get her married to me once she came of age," Liam reminisced, a wistful smile playing on his lips.
"Though they were joking at the time, I took it seriously," Liam admitted, his tone tinged with regret. "Around three years after they were born, my uncle took all of us kids back home for an outing, where we were attacked by our enemies. My uncle went into a coma, and... we lost her."
"From that day there we checked every place possible to find any traces of her but found nothing not even her dead body," Liam's voice faltered, a single tear tracing its path down his cheek. He wiped it away before turning to face Lea, his gaze searching as he continued.
"All of this happened because of me. When we were attacked my uncle and the other elders defended us but I had to play the hero at that time and go out to fight those enemies".
"Obviously I was overpowered and that person was about to kill me when my uncle left his safe spot and came over to help me. He killed the person but at that time they attacked the kids in the tent on the other side and she was in that tent".
"The guards who had come with us tried to stop those people but one of them took her and kept a knife on her neck threatening to kill her and walked towards the edge of the cliff".
"Somehow my uncle got close to him and freed his daughter and pushed that man down the cliff but as they were standing at the edge while having this confrontation that place collapsed and both my uncle and his daughter fell from the cliff".
"After a lot of searching, they finally found my uncle in a barely breathing state and his daughter was nowhere to be found" Liam exhaled deeply once he was done telling the story.
But for some reason when Lea heard this story, she felt that she knew about it, more like all of this happened before her.
Lea's train of thought was broken as Liam started speaking again, "After this incident, as I grew up I don't know if it was because of guilt or the attachment I had with her or something else I started developing romantic emotions for her and this made me even determined to find her at any cost".
Then he lifted his head, looked directly into Lea's eyes, and said "When I first saw you, especially those same eyes I thought you were her".
"What?" Lea exclaimed in shock.
Looking at her reaction which looked genuinely confused Liam thought to himself "Am I really wrong about her? Is she not who I thought she was?".