: Re: How do I write a romance that doesn't look obvious I'm writing a story, it's not focused on romance, but that's an important part as well. The point is that I have two characters and I ended

@Murphy332

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No, you can't fool the reader. But there are certain ways to make matchmaking less obvious during the course of your story.

Provide a lot of action. This is a frequently used approach, which can be combined with the other ways. Readers' attention won't be focused on the brewing romance, and when your characters are finally ending up together, it would be both logical and satisfying. Finrey may be a good example here;
Provide a convincing reason why your two characters can't be together. The difficulty here is make this reason truly convincing rather than expected to be overthrown. Previous engagements, celibate, rules of professional conduct, marriage laws are examples of NON-convincing reasons that readers would be looking to be vanquished. There is no clear formula to making such a convincing reason (to be broken later). I can point to an example in "Shrek".

Variant: Do a "lampshading". Early on, when it is only becoming evident that two characters can be a match, address this possibility directly and sincerely. The idea of the romance should be explored and thoroughly dismissed. This approach is better done with character's own inner thoughts, and those thoughts should appear like a justified reasoning rather than self-deception.

Turn this story into "winning the girl (the guy)" scenario. This way, while the romantic intentions would be obvious to the reader, you can postpone the actual romance till the very end;
Provide a romantic distraction. Create am impression that your characters have different destiny for them. For example, in Star Wars, Luke looked like a match for Leia until a later twist, so the audience might have completely overlook that Han Solo has also had a chemistry with Leia;

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