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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46604
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46604
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

> How can chemistry be perceived without giving evidence that they will be a couple in the future?

You can make the chemistry perceptible without going over the top, but then you need a barrier between them, something the characters feel will not change and will not allow them to be together.

One of them is happily married with no intent of cheating; perhaps both of them are. But later you (the author) kill the spouse in the way, through no intent of either character.

Or one of them is homosexual, and believes they are homosexual, but eventually _because_ they realize they are in love and fantasizing about the other, discovers they are bisexual.

Or vice versa, if you have a homosexual relationship. I know a woman (a platonic friend of mine for 20 years) that thought she was heterosexual, due to an upbringing in a religious church-going household. She did not realize she was homosexual until she was in her mid-twenties. (This was in the early 1980's before the Internet was common.)

You can make the barrier **legal:** It is common in military outfits that an officer cannot have intimate relationships with subordinates, this can be a court-martial offense, and sexual harassment even if the subordinate consents: but free consent cannot be a certainty when the superior officer has influence over the career of the subordinate. And that is real life, in fiction you can make the requirements that much harder, e.g. make it a prison offense with a mandatory five year minimum.

Other legal barriers can exist (and have) over race, religion, citizenship, and sexual orientation (until recently homosexual sex was illegal in many jurisdictions within the USA, and still is in many jurisdictions throughout the world, even if anal or oral sex IS legal between a man and a woman).

IN ANY CASE, what you need is to add in a huge barrier, a stumbling block. It can be psychological, or marital, or incompatible sexual orientation, or a legal prohibition, or perhaps just a physical barrier of vast distance: they have obvious chemistry, but are separated by a distance it is very unlikely they will overcome.

Make the barrier as obvious and compelling as the chemistry; perhaps even more compelling. Perhaps there are multiple barriers. Then someday, all barriers evaporate, and when they realize this, they pursue their chemistry and consummate their romantic relationship.

Original score: 5