Does my high school crush actually like me, or am I completely delusional and overanalyzing a shy guy's actions?

I honestly don't know if I'm being delusional or if this guy is just insanely shy and. Basically, there's this guy at my school, let's call him N.

He’s 17 and I’m 16. Objectively, N is really attractive now, but he used to be overweight in middle school and had very few friends. Because of that, I feel like he is still super insecure deep down, he has never had a girlfriend, and he is terrified of being rejected or humiliated. He has even admitted to our mutual friend that if a girl makes the first move on him, she has a 99% chance, and that even if a girl gives him clear signals, he just assumes she’s being friendly.

​We’ve had this weird, thing, going on for a while. On the last day of school before summer, I impulsively opened my arms and asked him for a hug, which I NEVER do because I'm usually way too shy. He walked up to me, wrapped his arms around me, and I put my hands on his shoulders/neck and laid my head against his chest. We held the hug for like 7 full seconds, and it felt so warm and relaxing. When my friend jokingly shouted "Kiss him on the cheek!", I laughed and pulled away, and he just smiled and looked super flustered. Over the summer, we didn't really talk much but then we started texting and snapping a bit more. We would stay up talking until 3 AM about completely random stuff just to keep the conversation going, and he’d leave heart reactions on my messages or restart the chat whenever it died down. While I was traveling, I snapped a picture of a plush keychain in a shop, and he immediately replied saying it was amazing. I offered to buy it for him, and after doing the whole timid "no no you don't have to" thing, he gave in and asked me to surprise him. When I gave it to him back at school, he got super sweet and quiet, and a friend later told me that on a day I was absent, he was literally sitting in class playing with the keychain the whole time. And then one day, I wasn't at school and he texted me why didn't I come even though we aren't in the same class

Also

​Despite all of this, we both have a bad habit of putting up huge emotional walls whenever things get a little too real. A few days ago, I sent him a voice message telling him about some drama in my class, and I casually said "I know you and I are just casual friends" just to protect my own ego so I wouldn't sound like I was pressing him. I regret it so much. But then in his reply, he literally repeated the exact same phrase "casual friends" back to me to describe something else, almost like my words hurt him or he was trying to throw my own defense mechanism back in my face. Plus, whenever I banter or joke around with other guys in our group, he instantly jumps in with jealous or sarcastic comments like "Ooh look at the lovers!" to try to downplay it.

​Which brings me to what happened today, and the reason why I'm losing my mind. I walked into his classroom during a break while he was standing there talking to one of his guy friends. I walked right up to him, he smiled and he looked so happy to see me, he was like "Hiii! How are you?" and I said "Hii, did you miss me? I missed you" The second the words left my mouth, he kinda froze. He didn't say a single word back to me verbally. For about two seconds, my heart totally dropped because I felt like I just got completely ignored and put in my place in front of his friend. BUT I think his friend was talking to him about how I look like one of his (his friend's) relative? Anyway literally a second later, without saying anything, he grabbed his backpack, turned it around, and proudly showed me that he had attached the keychain I bought him directly onto his bag zipper for the whole school to see, smiling so big and looking so happy to show me.

​So now I am completely torn. Is he just an insanely shy guy who freezes up under pressure when his friends are watching, or am I misinterpreting a guy who just views me as a friend? How am I supposed to handle a guy who seems to like me but refuses to make a direct verbal move out of fear? Please be brutally honest with me! Should I make a move?