8 years later, still have a massive crush on this guy I've liked since I was 13

Bottom line: I'm typically a realist, and yet I have a very strong feeling that we're supposed to be together after all this time? Complicated, extensive history summed up below:

1. Met this guy (let's call him "N") a few weeks before we started high school in 2010 -- even at 13, I knew I was in for trouble


2. Being that I was pretty shy in high school, we didn't really speak, though we had many mutual friends (so we did cross paths in that regard)


3. Kept my crush a secret for years and years; eventually I had accepted that it was probably always going to be unrequited (and pure infatuation)


4. Senior year, this other guy (let's call him "C") took interest in me. I gave C a chance, and him and I started dating


5. The thing was -- N and C were best friends at the time. All of a sudden, once C and I started dating, N and C abruptly stopped being best friends. It was petty high school drama and became a lot messier than necessary. N was a pretty big jerk at the time; he made a big deal out of not approving of this relationship (saying that C wasn't make time for his friends anymore), convinced a bunch of their friends to side with him, etc etc


6. I broke up with C early into our first year of university; the relationship was quite toxic and I knew I was saving us both


7. N was someone I never thought I'd see again after high school -- but as a twist of fate, through our mutual friends, we ended up becoming part of the same core friend group of 10 people who see eachother fairly often. Summer cottage trips, games nights, group dinners out, etc etc.


8. Things were a little awkward/tense between N and I for awhile because of the drama that had gone on back in high school, but over time, we moved past it. We didn’t become the best of friends but we were on good terms


9. During a cottage trip in 2016 (the summer after our second year of university), my friends and I (naturally) all got fairly drunk. At one point, all our friends were hanging out in the cottage basement and N and I both had to use the bathroom upstairs. So we were upstairs, just lightly chatting, and then all of a sudden at one point we’re laughing at the mere fact we’re both so drunk. There’s this moment when we both just stop and look at each other, and he kisses me out of the blue. Then we’re laughing again, at the fact our friends would be extremely confused by this (out of the 10 friends, we probably interact with eachother some of the least), so we make a pact to keep the kiss between us. Naturally, we’re drunk, and the one kiss progresses into a lot more in pretty heated fashion. There's this "about time" kind of feeling to it. We’re able to stop ourselves before we go all the way.


10. But… I guess I wasn’t completely over N being a jerk in high school during my relationship with C (as we had never talked about it and received closure), so after we had finished hooking up, I may have confronted him about it out of the blue. Had to get it off my chest after 3 years of keeping it in. Could tell that N genuinely felt bad about it. Anyway, two of our friends barged into the bathroom and caught N and I together, so the whole “keeping it between us” pact fell through


11. Again, awkwardness between N and I for awhile but time heals all. Our friend group now sees each other more often than ever (even now that we’re all “adults”). N and I are once again on good terms, not the best of friends, but good. Flirt occasionally but we haven’t hooked up since that one unnecessarily dramatic summer night in 2016


12. But we’re both not kids anymore and yet I still feel the same butterflies I did at 13. I see the way he stares at me and he has to notice the way I look at him too. We’re both starting our real lives now, in a place where we’ve found ourselves, into similar interests, and share the same core values of family, etc. There’s a lot of history that’s hard to see past but I can’t seem to shake off this feeling that he’s my person??


Wow that was a lot longer than expected. Anyway, extremely conflicted with how I should approach this; do I just continue waiting around for something to miraculously happen? Do I man up and tell him I feel this way? If so, how? sos