My Best Friend is Australian: They Called Him "Carpet" Because He Was So Hairy

My best friend is Australian, and his name is John. His real name is apparently "Giovanni," which sounds like a cool character from a mafia movie, but in contrast to that name, he was so hairy that everyone called him "Carpet." It’s a terrible nickname that conveys its harshness 100% in both Japanese and English. My first impression of John was, "This guy is a loner."

I met John in the second year of middle school. I had been studying abroad for a year, but since I couldn't speak English, I had no friends. One day in music class, the teacher said the phrase I hated most at the time: "Let’s make a group." As a short Asian kid who couldn't fit into any group, the teacher placed me in one. That group consisted of four boys who weren't popular in class, and John was among them. At the time, John had a mushroom cut like Paul McCartney from the Beatles.

While other groups were playing instruments harmoniously, my group was competing to see who could hit the drums the loudest. We were like a very dim-witted version of the Beatles. John handed me the drumsticks and told me what to do in English that even a short Asian kid could understand: "Hit Hard." The moment I gripped the sticks and struck the drums with all my might, the world suddenly gained color. It was the first time I felt I was having fun since coming to Australia.

From then on, we played tag together and they included me in group work, making my life abroad enjoyable. I remember on my 14th birthday, John and the others came to my house, and my mother was so happy that "Hikaru finally made friends." Looking back, they were incredibly kind to accept me without hesitation despite the language barrier.

John doesn't talk much. To give you an idea, he spoke less than I did, and English was my second language. When most Japanese people hear "Italian roots," they imagine a dandy like Girolamo Panzetta, wooing women with smooth talk. But John was the exact opposite. His only Italian element was his hairy chest and arms. If there were an "Italian Gacha," John would be the ultimate dud.

However, John got his first girlfriend in the tenth grade. Until then, he had acted tough, saying "Guys who hang out with girls are boring," but from the day he got a girlfriend, he spent his breaks letting her sit on his lap while he fed her jelly. I remember being shocked at how quickly a person could change. But I wasn't jealous at all. I'm not just acting tough—it's because his girlfriend looked like "Michael Jackson during his white phase." That romance with the "King of Pop" ended before I knew it, lasting less than six months.

The turning point for John was the eleventh grade. It was a school trip to Japan for students taking Japanese classes. When they visited a sister school, the Japanese high school girls, for whom foreigners were a rarity, got very excited. They wrote their LINE IDs on the back of their name tags and handed them to John and his friends. John was overjoyed by this "popularity phenomenon" that would never happen in his own country. At the airport on the way back, he bought a hiragana study book and downloaded LINE. This was the beginning of John's path as a WEEB (Japan otaku).

By the twelfth grade, John's WEEB-ness accelerated. During summer vacation, he did a short-term study abroad at a Japanese high school and brought back a Zanpakuto from BLEACH as a souvenir. The fact that it wasn't Zangetsu, but Kisuke Urahara's "Benihime," felt very much like John. During this time, among us, going to Japan or liking Japan was called "doing a John." John had become a verb. You might think this sounds a bit sad, but when asked about his type of woman, John would say something incredibly rude like "Anyone is fine as long as they're Japanese," so it's okay. Honestly, John was the creepier one.

After graduating high school, I returned to Japan to enter a Japanese university, and John entered an Australian university. However, John's WEEB-ness didn't change, and except for the COVID-19 pandemic, he came to Japan almost every year. John's stay pattern is basically spending 3 to 4 weeks in Tokyo. He doesn't really do anything specific; he just spends time there.

On the first day he arrives, I ask, "What are you doing today?" and every time he says, "I don't know." It's terrifying. Who comes to a foreign country and has no plans from day one? So, I make plans for him every time, but it's quite difficult to plan for John, who is picky despite being a foreigner himself, saying things like "There are too many foreigners in Japan" or "Shibuya Mario Kart is uncool, so I won't do it." In the end, we spent many overly luxurious and meaningless days together, like watching comedy shows even though he doesn't understand a word of Japanese. Incidentally, since John doesn't understand Japanese, he can judge the quality of the comedy solely by the volume of the audience's laughter without any bias. I called him the "Comedy Speed Gun."

I even set up a group date (gokon) for John, who loves Japanese people. With the help of some female friends, the four of us had dinner. The girls kindly asked John in English, "What are you studying at university?" and "What was your favorite place in Japan?" What kind girls they were. This isn't an experience you could get even if you paid for it.

But John, as if trampling on their kindness, answered every question with a single word like "Math" or "Tokyo," made no effort to expand the conversation, and eventually stopped talking altogether. After the date, I blew up at John. I felt bad for the female friends who went out of their way to talk to him, and I was frustrated by his lack of action. When I snapped, "Why don't you talk!?" John said in the kind of English only Japanese people use: "Sorry... I'm shy." It was the first time I'd ever seen a "loner" Italian.

In 2024, my mother passed away.

I didn't think it was something to tell him over the phone, so I told John directly when he came to Japan and the two of us were traveling in Okinawa. I mentioned it casually while we were driving along a road with a view of the sea. I wondered if it would get awkward, and in the next moment:

"F!!!"*

John shouted toward the Okinawa sky. To me, it sounded like a cannon, like a "funeral salute." There were no clever words of condolence or comforting hugs. Just that curse word, like a shot fired into the sky, correctly validated my grief. Seeing John shout "F*!!!" made me laugh. And I was happy. Happy that I had a friend who would say "F*" for me.

On John's final day before returning to Australia, I asked him, "What are you doing today?" and he said, "Let's go visit your mother's grave." This was the same John who, when asked about his plans on the first day, said "I don't know." On the morning of his last day, he naturally said, "Let's go visit the grave." It was the last day of his trip. He should have wanted to spend those precious final hours eating delicious Japanese food or seeing the sights one last time, but John decided, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, to dedicate that time to visiting the grave. John followed my lead, placed incense at the grave, and pressed his hands together. Thinking I would cry if I let my guard down, I tried to leave quickly, but John spoke to my mother's grave in broken Japanese:

"Mata, rainen"

In that moment, the tears I had been holding back overflowed like a dam bursting. Could there be any words more kind? I felt certain that everything in my life abroad, from the moment he handed me that drumstick in the music room, had been for this very moment. People often ask those with study abroad experience, "If you could go back to those days, would you study abroad again?" I can say with pride: "As many times as it takes, if it means meeting John."

Even now, every time John comes to Japan, he always asks, "When shall we go to the grave?" and every time, he says "Mata rainen" to my mother in broken Japanese.

My best friend is Australian. He's called "Carpet." But it's not because he's hairy. It's because his thick kindness warms my heart.