a boy and i: i initiated i miss yous and genuine compliments about his character and what he really meant to me (but without outright telling him i was infatuated with him romantically)

he's above average intelligence but not genius. 10-12 years old. we hit it off from literally day one. there are differences in our personalities of course, he likes apples i like oranges kinda thing but the important thing is he does things to make me happy/not sad and i do the same for him.

anyway he's replied with i miss yous and "i feel the same way too" (well along those lines anyway when i told him some of my feelings/views of him) after some initial discomfort. relationship developed to us hanging out on a regular basis. always positive.

he became aware of some of my personal/personality issues because i trusted him to show him some more personal sides of me. he was very sensitive to my feelings. very very kind to me always. looked out for me and my feelings. (dont get the impression this was one sided, i tried to show my love and care for him as well). when i told him some things he did were hurting me, he actually did something about it.

he knew i cared about him a lot. he knew he was really important to my life. he knew he meant a lot to me. he never intentionally hurt me or was selfish towards me, like put his interests ahead of my feelings.

so my question is what does this all mean? does he love me? what does it all mean? looking for some objective views.

thanks in advance.