He just said he likes me, I’m freaking outtttttt🤪

So we had a conversation about movies, and then he said it to me indirectly and I was like “what are you saying?” and he was like “nothing😜😜😜😜”.

I’m 18 and he’s 22. We met online but never face to face (due to the lockdown situation about COVID-19). We do talk daily for about 3 weeks now from morning to late late at night. Lately he is late in replying to my texts but I think it’s just because he’s kinda busy. Now we had a real time conversation with no delays and that’s when he threw it off.

I left him on seen on his “nothing😜😜😜😜” text. I don’t know if I should reply to that. I think I’ll just wait until he texts again but I hope he doesn’t think I’m not interested.

How do you think I should respond?