He was a boy
She was a girl
Can I make it any more obvious?

-Sk8er Boi, Avril Lavigne

Romance is deeply ingrained into Western literature

Audiences have been trained to expect that if there are two primary characters of opposite genders, they will end up in a romantic relationship, no matter their starting attitudes. This is backed up by centuries of literature, and is not an assumption that can easily be shaken.

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

-Elie Wiesel

Romance is fueled by strong emotions. Hate and dislike are just as strong as attraction and affection, even if they're coming from the opposite direction. Indifference is much more effective at appearing unromantic than opposition is.

Add other characters and romantic false leads

If there are two main characters, readers will assume that they will end up together. But if there are many characters of similar importance, mapping the romantic arcs becomes a lot more complicated, and you'll have a much greater chance of slipping a slow burn by your readers.

If the character that you plan to end up together start out in relationships with other people, that can deepen the effect. Be careful when doing this, though. I've read a series (name omitted to avoid spoilers) where an early romantic arc was completely ruined for me because a later romance was telegraphed too obviously, and I spent all of the first romance waiting for it to end so that they could move on to the 'real' romance. Obviously, you want to avoid that.

There are other ways you can indicate a non-romance, but those are largely unavailable to you

Incompatible orientations (i.e. make one of the characters gay), familial affection (even if they're not actually related), and similar tricks can make it clear that a pair will never be in a romantic relationship. That said, these tools work by indicating that the romance in question is impossible, and later introducing that romance would be a betrayal of your readers, so they mostly don't work in this case.

If you're really good, you might lead your readers into assuming that one of the characters is gay (when in fact they're actually bi or pan), but be very, very careful when doing something like this. Tricking the readers is fine, but lying to them makes readers extremely unhappy. And the author doesn't always get to decide the difference.

No matter what you do, some readers will ship them

If Harry Potter fanfic has taught us anything, it's that given enough readers, everything gets shipped. No matter how many false leads you try to lay, some people will pair them together.

The trick is not to make these readers think that the pair won't happen, but to instill enough doubt that they are extremely excited once they discover that it is happening.

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