I need advice on how to go about potentially adopting a stray

Hello cat lovers. There has been this stray cat in my neighborhood I been seeing around for months. It’s usually lays in my yard and naps but doesn’t let anyone get close to it and runs away if you try although about e days ago it let me pet it and I fed it some cat food. I spent some time with it outside and even brought it in my house. He was chill for a little and very friendly, took some naps on my couch slept the night until around 4am when he kept pacing and meowing at the door. I felt guilty for keeping it inside so I let him out and camped in front of my house for an hour and was gone for the rest of the day.

Then around 9pm he came back and it was the same thing all over again. Sleep and eat and my place and then he wants to leave at 4am. I really like this cat and want to keep him as a pet. After letting him go again he proceeded to come back today at 9pm again. This time he ate and chilled for bit but when he came back today his meow was very raspy almost like he’s been meowing all day. He wanted to leave at 10:45 today so I let him go but I want to know if it ethical to take this cat in?

I don’t want to take away its “freedom” I feel so guilty when I see it meowing by the door all anxiously. I want to take it to the vet to get it scanned for a chip to see if he belongs to anyone. Also this cat is a boy and had a slit on his ear, looks like a medical slit but not 100% sure.

Anyways what do you guys think? Is it normal for them to act like that?