Dear Tezuka Kunimitsu,
    

Happy birthday! And congratulation to Segaku’s first championship in the National Tennis Contest!
    

You might be very confused when you receive this anonymous letter, or maybe you might throw it in your trash can without opening the envelope, since receiving love letters from girls can’t be more common to you. However, the reason why I write this letter is not to ask you to be my boyfriend, but to express my appreciation for your company in the past six years. I believe you have the right to know how big of an influence you have exerted on an ordinary girl.
    

The first time I saw you, you were new to the tennis club in Seigaku Middle School. Even though you were only a 7th grader, your tennis skills were already better than most of the players in the club. I could tell, from only a glimpse of your practice, that you took tennis training way more seriously than others, and I could even foresee the conflict between you and other club members. As I expected, those upperclassmen in the club saw your immutable poker face and precocious characteristic as a defiance. However, their threats didn’t diminish your passion for tennis. Instead, after the practice I saw you solemnly hand your tennis racquet to Oishi, another tennis player in your class who was just as devoted to tennis as you were, promising him that you would lead Seigaku varsity tennis team to the finals in the National Tennis Contest. “I will become Seigaku’s pillar of support,” you said. The confident aura you suffused made everything surrounding you fade. At that time I didn’t have much faith in you; to me, your determination to consolidate the tennis club was an unachievable goal. But I still kept my eyes on you. Maybe it was because I was eager to confirm my assumption, or perhaps I was curious to learn how well an ambitious freshman could do.                                   
    

I was shocked to hear that you became the captain of the varsity tennis team two years later, for I realized that I had underestimated your leadership ability. Using my free time to see you practice, I was not surprised when I found that your poker face was as straight as usual, yet this time I noticed something had changed: it was not only you who wanted to bring the tennis team to a higher level. All the varsity members standing around you were also pugnacious to take the challenge. If all of you were willing to work as a team, the outcome would be much better than just you unilaterally trying to build a better team. In our second encounter, to my surprise, my attitude toward you had changed significantly. Indeed, after witnessing the change of atmosphere in the team, it was hard to believe you all would not succeed.
    

Your worst enemy is yourself. This has always been your motto. I appreciated it very much, until I saw the game you had against Atobe, the captain of Hyotei Academy’s tennis team. The whole stadium was in silence when you dropped your racquet on the ground because of the severe pain on your left shoulder. Just like your comrades, I anxiously shouted at you when you firmly picked up the racquet and continued the game, knowing your were betting your whole tennis career on this one game: if you overused your shoulder, you could never play tennis again in your life. At that point your body was the enemy you were trying to defeat, and I knew you would never give up until the end of the game. Unfortunately, your body can go only so far with your mind. Even though you lost the game, it was still a glorious defeat. You used your action to prove to everyone present that you were the real victor in sportsmanship.
     

Before I realized, I had already set you as my role model. I started to study as hard as I could because you had straight A’s through middle school. I learned to appreciate classical music after knowing you were a big fan of Beethoven. I even started to play tennis. Running on the tennis court and hustling for the balls, I felt like I was one step closer to you. Tennis is the only door to your little world. Now that I have learned how to play tennis, I am qualified to apprehend the stress and pain you had endured.
    

My friends in China always see my obsession with you as a joke. “How can you be so naive!” they shouted at me. “You have to realize that you can’t put so much of your energy in an animè character. You need to have a real life.” However, they can never understand that I saw you way much more than an animè character. You are like a mentor who can be referenced whenever I am confused. What would Tezuka do? I always asked myself, for I knew you could always give me a right answer.
    

It is amazing to see how quickly time flies.You were one grade higher than me six years ago, when I first met you. Now I am already past 18 and am applying to colleges, but in the animè you are just about to go to high school. With that being said, you are always my big brother in my heart. My understanding towards you has expanded along with the development of my own understanding of the world. Since I have become the volleyball team captain this semester, looking back to that battle between you and Atobe, I started to understand your feeling in that extreme situation. However, I still don’t think I will ever have the guts to make as big of a sacrifice that you had made. I could never imagine putting my health in risk just to win a volleyball game because there are so many things dragging me back: I need to consider my parents, my friends, and my own life.
   

  There is so much to say, yet I only have so little time to write this letter (because our teacher gave us a deadline). In the end, I hope you will like your high school! I am looking forward to witnessing the creation of your next kingdom.
     Again, Happy birthday to you.

Your secret admirer
10/7/2014