"The idea is, you squeeze the air through a small space under the car, not too much though otherwise it would cause drag, so you let some of the air escape outwards, and that would also aid with the wake of the front wheels. This is called outwash..."
Zack was doing it again, absolutely lost in his passion for cars, he realizes it mid explanation and compels himself to stop. But he can't stop now? Stopping now would be weird, it's like his explanation went nowhere, he would look dumb, worse than he already does. Despite his conscious fears, Rachel still shows no sign of being terribly bored like people mostly do. Could it be that she's genuinely interested? Or hides her boredom well?
"I digress, the remaining squeezed air gets accelerated before the volume of the tunnel increases again, spreading out the air particles and lowers the pressure under the car. So then you get like a suction effect under the car, and it sticks to the road when you corner." Zack wanted to explain how diffusers also reduce wake behind the car, but he figures that he already bored her enough.
"Wow." Rachel only managed to mouth. "You're gonna make it far in life."
"I hope so, but I have to graduate first."
"I'm sure that'll be easy for you, how's your CGPA now?"
Wait a minute, why is she asking things about him? He can't make it all about himself. Zack thinks of a way to make the exchange a little more back and forth, but he needs to answer her questions first of course. "3.9" he somehow didn't like answering that, it feels like he's bragging, or exposing himself to be the huge nerd he is. "Actually, sorry for asking but what is it that you study?" He asks, genuinely.
"Oh me? I'm doing my internship right now, I studied marketing."
"What kind of marketing? At least from my understanding, it's pretty broad."
"My intern place is pretty fun, my team gets to interview people and film things to make those ads you see on YouTube. But I know people skip the ads anyway."
Zack starts to feel a little guilty for always skipping ads. It only just sunk in that every ad had a production team behind them and took loads of effort to make. "So you're like a filmmaker? Oscar when?"
Rachel laughed. This was more like it. He should stop talking about cars, even if people ask, they're probably asking to be nice, he should learn how to give short answers. "Red Dot when? I mean you're on your way there already, 3.9!"
Zack has no idea how to respond to compliments, so he just tries to lower a bar for himself. "I have to design something that wins MDM first."
"Ah, conquer the local scene first, makes sense!" Her screen lit up, and her phone buzzed. "Oop! That's my reminder, I have to go now, but thanks for joining me at lunch today!"
"Of course!" He gets up as she did, and went for the counter. He just had lunch with a girl, he has to get the bill.
...
Later that night...
"I don't wanna get ahead of myself, but it was pretty awesome!" Zack says, chatting with Jian and Dymo on Discord.
"Good, don't get ahead of yourself." Dymo says.
"That is what I just said tho." Zack says, and Jian laughed.
"You know what it sounds like to me?" His roommate Yusa says, appearing behind Zack.
"Eyyy it's Yusa, sup?" Dymo greets upon hearing his voice.
"From what I heard about your date with the church girl, and with how Ari acted around you, I think you somehow found some Rizz!" Jian and Dymo groaned and cringed.
"Please don't say Rizz again." Dymo remarks.
Zack shrugs. "How tho? I didn't do anything differently."
"Zack, you know what you can do now?" Jian chimes in. "You can go find girls to date!"
"What the- nah man, I'm not that kind of guy."
"I don't mean have 10 girlfriends, but go on like 10 dates and then choose 1 girl you like!"
Zack couldn't help but feel like that was a decent idea. "I'll sleep on it."
"But let me tell you a secret." He adds. "No amount of charisma..."
"Rizz." Yusa says, earning a dirty look from Jian and Dymo. They can't see each other in voice chat, but he could feel the dirty looks.
"...will do shit if you have no confidence."
"Having confidence is easier said than done mate."
"You fake it until it becomes real." Dymo says. "It's how I got my girlfriend."
"I'll sleep on it." Zack says again, rubbing his eyes.
...
That weekend, he was on the way to the mall by train to hang out with Jian and Dymo. He parks his car at the train station early, it's much cheaper to take the train there than to pay and struggle to get a parking spot at the mall. He takes out a small pouch of cat food and gently shakes it. "Cantek!" He calls out. A few people glanced at him, but we're not bothered. Cantek was the name of the cat that the station adopted. A Calico with a golden bell on her red collar. Soon, Cantek emerged from the stairs leading up to the train platform and jogged towards him, her tail sprung upwards. "Hi Cantek! Good girl!"
He pets her, scratching her chin and behind her ears. Is it odd to come earlier to the train station just to have a few minutes to play with the cat there? Probably. He tries to pick Cantek up before another guy who he doesn't know rebukes him for it. "Cantek doesn't like getting carried."
"Really? She seems okay with me." Zack lifts her up anyways, and Cantek doesn't struggle at all. "Cats are blunt, if they don't like it they'd make it clear." He then takes her a short distance towards the bench where he set her down to his side, but she climbs on his lap instead and starts rubbing her head against his belly.
"Awww..." The man said. "I guess she just really likes you." He too started to pet Cantek.
"I guess she does." He opens the pouch of cat food and put some onto the bench next to him. Cantek didn't immediately jump at the food. She enjoyed Zack's pets for a little longer before he decided to finally catch his train. Behind him, the stranger attempts to pick Cantek up, only for her to meow loudly in protest.
On the train, he spots a rather attractive girl with a really cool 991 GT3 RS shirt. Truth be told, he's not the type that falls in love at first sight, he's more interested in the shirt than the girl. But if he's going to try out his newfound "Rizz". Might as well on a girl he doesn't know. If something goes wrong, at least he wouldn't see her again. He approaches the girl and strikes up a conversation. "I like your shirt. Where you get it?"
At first, the girl was startled, but he could have sworn he saw light enter her eyes. It was odd, he would even call it unnatural. "Oh! I got it online."
"Mind if I take a photo of the shirt? I could use image search to find it myself."
"That won't be necessary." She pulls out her phone. "Can I have your number? I can send you the link."
This is crazy, he never had a girl ask him for his number before. "Save it under Zack, that's what I go by."
"My name is Joey." She blushes. He receives her link, and indeed it leads to a store called "Artlines Design" where they sell merchandise of all sorts of car models.
He figures that this is time to put his newfound powers to the ultimate test. "Hey Joey, you're kinda cute, do you mind if I take you out on a date?"
"I'm uhhh I'm..." Zack prepares for the worse. "I'm free this weekend." What have he gotten himself into?
"Great! I'll plan something, are you comfortable to be picked up or shall I meet you somewhere?"
"Um, meet."
"I'll see you this weekend Joey!"
That went... Too well. But it felt nice to have such a positive response, it felt nice to feel... Confident. He realizes the only reason he even had the balls to walk up to that girl to take her on a date in the first place was because of what Jian said, that he might have newfound Rizz. How long did he have this? And how did he get it?