Requester: Bearlywrote; Prompt: Keisuke is given the choice of betraying his friends for freedom and being who he wants to be; Borrowed Characters: Cuddly , Seishun/Yuuki (belong to the requester); After Help from the Shadows; AU

Freedom.

For a long time, Keisuke had always been stuck on that one topic. Consider it weird, but he's already consumed every single book, be it fiction or non-fiction, that had this as a theme. He wasn't sure himself why he was. He just knew that that was what he wanted. 

To be free. 

From what? 

Another enigma to him. 

He didn't know. If Keisuke were to be honest, he didn't know what he could be free from. 

For so long, he searched and searched. He never understood this.... Obsession? Connection? He wasn't sure- to that certain word. He read so many psychology books, suffering through the difficult words just to try to find the answer. 

He never found it.

And that just made him feel even more confused. 

When he joined the Agency, he found himself wanting to be free even more. 

Free from what? They're my friends. 

To fight that feeling, he began the clinging to his sister. 

It was unbearable the first time he did it. His senses were screaming for him not to, saying she was dangerous, she would only tell him that he was safe with her.

But he still did it.

After that, he gradually got more comfortable with it. The more he did it, the less he had to listen to those voices. Call him selfish, but he liked it that way. 

Until Shuka came out the first time, that is. 

That very same moment, he felt his senses scream for him to run. But he didn't.  

When the truth was revealed, Keisuke felt as if he had to stay away from Natsume. 

He didn't listen. 

He loved his sister, so why should he stay away from her? 

The Soranaki incident made him wonder if this was all he was worth; a coward.

There has to be more than this, He told himself. I'm the only normal one. Everyone has some good trait. I'm only the "coward"...

To be honest, a part of him admired Kenji for what he could do that Keisuke couldn't; defend the weak. He hated how defenseless he was. How WEAK he was.

What he didn't know was that his life was about to take an unexpected turn.