What do I do about a weird "friend" I've made?

For context, I (18F) am studying at a smallish university about to start my second year. There was this guy, we'll call him Tom, in his early 20's, also at the same program and year as me. I just casually noticed him for almost a year but we never talked, I barely registered his existence. Then, I needed help and asked him something about the uni portal after a class one day as class ended. We kept talking and he seemed nice enough. Then he asked me if I was going to eat lunch at the cafeteria, so I went with him. Again, this was just two acquaintances talking. I told him I had a train to catch in two hours or so as I lived a bit away and Tom told me he'd accompany me and if I wanted to drink something first. I said sure and he took a bit of a romantic (?) detour to a park. Then we got coffee and it kept feeling more and more like a date by the way he was talking and smiling but I didn't think to much of it.

After this, Tom kept texting me. I had given him my number at the cafe for uni stuff. He kept wanting to meet up and come to my city and I avoided making concrete plans. Eventually we did hang out near my house about a week or two later. We went to a bar and a restaurant and he kept sitting near me/flirting with me despite me not reciprocating at all. No, I didn't consider this a date at all, it was nothing friends wouldn't go out to do together. After this he again, kept texting me. This man texts me, I tell him I'm busy with [x], he texts me the day that is supposed to be over to meet up, rinse and repeat. It has gotten to the point that I put off texting him back for days thinking maybe he'll get the hint but he doesn't. I don't want to outright say anything because he hasn't done/said anything explicitly romantic and I have a feeling he'll deny/get mad? as he tends to be pushy in normal conversation. He keeps amping up the flirting as I try to ignore it in his texts but at this point I don't know what to do? I don't think I was being unfair to him but at this point I'm not sure. I couldn't just block him either, the new semester is starting and I'm going to see him often for literal years. Again, if he was aggressive/scary I could think of ways of reporting him or something but this isn't that either.