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Raj and Howard had been acting weird the whole evening. They both were very quiet and looked at each other nervously from time to time. Penny put her food down and looked at them.
“Alright what’s going on you two?” she asked loudly and they both winced. She continued much quieter because it seemed she had hit a sore spot. “Everything alright?”
Now Leonard’s and Sheldon’s attention was also on them and they seemed to be pretty uncomfortable with this. They looked at each other again.
“We wanted to tell you something.” Howard started but didn’t actually say what they wanted to tell them. Raj also stayed quiet and so the awkward silence stretched through the room.
“What is it?” Leonard asked. Still silence. Leonard grinned. “You finally gonna come out?” He laughed and looked at Penny who also had to laugh. They had a weird relationship for platonic friends. While this was of course totally fine it was fun to tease them. But there was no comment from them and they Penny and Leonard grew quiet pretty quickly again.
“Yes actually,” Raj said and took Howard’s hand. “But good to know you think it’s a joke.”
“Oh,” Penny said unsure how to react. She felt terrible about laughing, Leonard looked similarly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry,” she added.
„So you finally found someone who will tolerate you for more then two dates,“ Sheldon chimed in. Raj rolled his eyes at this.
“Thank you Sheldon,” Howard said and almost managed to not sound sarcastic. At least Sheldon seemed to not pick up on the sarcasm.
“My pleasure,” he said and went back to his food.
“So yeah, we wanted to tell you that we’ve been dating for the past three months,” Raj said and he looked extremely relieved to finally be able to say it. Penny could see him squeezing Howard’s hand. It was really surprisingly cute. And they both smiled so happily. Penny got up.
“I’m happy for you,” she announced and walked over to them, opening her arms. Howard and Raj got up and let her hug them. When Penny let them go, Leonard was standing behind her and also congratulated them.