My childhood friend 22M is hitting on me 22F and I don't feel the same!

My friend 22M and I 22F were childhood best friends. We studied together from Grade 1 till Grade 5 and we're neighbours for 3 years. We used to play together as kids. Later, I moved and we lost touch. After 12th, I found him on Instagram and we started talking. He wanted to know everything about me and he spoke about a lot of things as well. I thought he just wanted me to know as a friend but thsose texts kept getting weirder and weirder. He asked me if I had boyfriend, he started sending good morning, good evening, and good night texts. I thought he was just being nice but it felt weird so I started distancing myself in the pretext of semester exams. We did stay in touch, but not very close. After 3 years, he wanted to meet and I invited him home coz I didnt want to meet him alone and my parents were home. We spoke and shared numbers. After which he started doing the same thing again. He wanted to call and talk for hours, know every detail about my life. He started called me pretty, beautiful out of no where and started hinting that I'm the only girl he talks to and that I'm someone he is very happy to have. He send message saying that he's lucky to have a woman like me in his life and so on. I'm his friend, atleast that's what I thought. He now wants to meet me and I don't want to. He's making comments indirectly making it feel like a date although it isn't. I just wanna hang out without feeling awkward. He's my friend and he'll always be. What should I do?