My friend says he likes...(please help)?

alright so i know this guy for about 6 yrs..... recently we have been closer friends then normal. he has this thing to give hugs. he always wants to give me bear hugs and enjoy them :) he might also take my ipod and he would say that i wont be getting it back till i give him a nice big hug :P i unfortunatly only see him once or twice a week :( but we text a lot. he's 3 yrs older than me but we're great friends :) so lately we were texting and we started the long conversation of 'so who do you like'? after a very long long looooong conversation i told him that i liked him and he said he liked me too :) this all happened about 2 weeks ago. so yesterday i saw him again and we were just talking and stuff. when we text we use a lot of :) :P ;) and xxxxxxx. i really like him but i'm not to sure if he likes me or not :( he's unfortunately doing exams lately so i cant text him when he's studying. we havent told anyone bout this and we promised eachother that we wouldn't tell anybody. When i got a a chain mail from my friend (who's a girl) that says i love you, i sent it onto my male friend. when he saw it he asked if i ment it and i said yes and he said i mean it too :) I just want to find out what you think of this... please leave a comment and your honest opinion :) xoxox thanks xooxxoox