Heading down the stairs into the third floor, Naoko could see that the area it led into didn't seem that much different than what they were used to. Same gray stone floor and walls, same security cameras hanging from the ceiling here and there. It seemed they still wouldn't expect to be able to escape from the largely drab aesthetic, let alone IMONO's watchful eye. At the very least, the floor began with an area where he could stand and look around. He could see there were some hallways as he first entered, one to his immediate left and two in front of him. These seemed to lead to other parts of the floor, and it felt like the floor might have been decently large, so he probably had a decent amount of searching to do.

The first major thing that caught Naoko's eye was what was to his right. He could see that, unlike the second floor, this floor had bathrooms, which was certainly a relief. He could see that there was a women's room on the left, and a men's room on the right, both doors being immediately adjacent to one another. Out of curiosity, Naoko went over to the men's bathroom and took a peek inside. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it turned out to be pretty basic. There were sinks, a couple urinals, four bathroom stalls, and a smaller stall at the end. He considered going inside for a better look around, but before he could, he heard a voice from behind him.

"I think you've got the wrong bathroom, dude."

He turned around slowly to see that it was Ishi, who was currently giving him an amused look.

"Sorry, I just wanted to see what was inside," Naoko explained.

"So that's why you were looking inside there, all, like, snoopy and stuff?" Ishi asked.

"Basically," Naoko replied.

"Well, I haven't seen inside there," Ishi said, "but if it's anything like the women's bathroom, it's pretty boring stuff. Sinks, toilets, one of those weird stalls with cleaning products..."

"That'd probably be the stall on the end, then," Naoko surmised.

"Whatever you say," Ishi said, shrugging. "Enough toilet talk, though. This shouldn't really be all we focus on, should it?"

"Well, no," Naoko replied. "I actually just want to make sure I give this place a good looking over."

"Then go wherever you want, man," Ishi said encouragingly.

Naoko agreed with this sentiment well enough, and decided to take another look around his immediate surroundings. There were still those two hallways on one side, both of which appeared to surround a decently-sized room. The left hallway had a door on the right side, making the "room" part crystal clear, though Naoko didn't see much of interest in the much narrower right hallway. Deciding to try the door, Naoko entered the left hallway and peeked inside of the room. Inside was quite a pleasant surprise.

In various parts of the room were what appeared to be square, counter height tables. They looked like they were stationary, given their metal bases, granite tops, and lack of wheels, but fortunately, they were already placed well enough in the room. Quite a few were off to the sides of the room, though there were two that were placed near the middle of the room parallel to each other. Of course, the tables weren't what was interesting about the room. Instead, it was what was on them.

They were plants, each of them in their own pot. The vast majority of them looked to be flowers of some kind, though Naoko couldn't really recognize many of them by name. His understanding of botany was unfortunately pretty basic. Above all of these flowers were lamps hanging from the ceiling, as well as various nozzles that were each pointed towards a specific plant.

Suffice to say, compared to what they were used to, seeing some actual greenery was actually a treat. Mareo and Takeshi seemed to be in agreement, as both of them were in the process of inspecting the contents of the room.

"Oh, wow," Naoko said to himself.

Mareo whipped his head over to him as he heard this. "Naoko, hey. Interesting place, huh?"

"Definitely," Naoko replied. "These must be the first living things I've seen around here besides you guys."

"That's an interesting observation. IMONO wouldn't exactly count, would it?" Mareo thought aloud.

"We've seen a bunch of robots controlled by IMONO," Naoko pointed out. "I don't think it'd be accurate to call them living things, though."

"Hmm…" Mareo took a moment to think about something. "I can imagine that Kimi would say something humorous about that statement, if she were here."

"I guess so," Naoko replied. "Y'know, since she likes to talk about you like you were a-"

"Golden yellow android," the both of them said simultaneously.

"Yeah, that's what I was referring to," Mareo said afterwards.

"How about a new subject, then," Naoko suggested. "Do you like this place?"

"Honestly? Yes, I do," Mareo said. "It's an aesthetically pleasing sight, and there's a nice aroma from all of the flowers. I'm tempted to take off my helmet to be able to enjoy it more."

"What do you mean?" Naoko asked. "Are you not able to smell well in that suit?"

"To an extent, yes," Mareo admitted. "Then again, I don't need to take off the helmet outright, do I? I could just lift the face guard up. Same overall effect, and much safer."

"Sure." Naoko broke eye contact with Mareo in order to look over at Takeshi, who seemed to be looking at something in another corner of the room. A bit curious, he began to walk over to him. "Hang on a minute," he said to Mareo as he walked, seemingly catching Takeshi's attention in the process.

"Huh?" Takeshi vocalized, turning to look at Naoko. "Need something?"

"No," Naoko replied, "I just noticed that you were doing something on your own while me and Mareo talked."

"Well, you and Mareo were having an alright conversation," Takeshi explained. "I didn't want to intrude on it."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Naoko apologized.

Takeshi waved him off politely. "Nah, It's all good. Hell, I'm sorry if I was weirding you out."

"You weren't really weirding me out," Naoko replied. "I just want to know what you're doing over here by yourself."

"Oh, well it's actually pretty interesting," Takeshi explained, moving to the side a bit. "Y'see, I just saw on this table, there was what looked like gardening stuff. Gloves, trowels, that sort of thing. And, well, aside from that, there's a folder full of information."

Naoko looked at the table he was in front of and saw that what Takeshi was saying was accurate. "What information?" he asked, moving forward to inspect the open folder.

"Just stuff about all the plants in this room," Takeshi explained. "There's the names of all of them, where they come from, that sort of stuff."

Naoko took a quick look at the page that was open on the folder, and saw an entry on what was apparently a type of angel's trumpet flower. Takeshi's explanation of the folder's contents was more or less accurate, based on what he could see from his quick look.

He stepped back a bit. "Okay then. So, what do we all think we should do with all of these?"

"Well, I suppose any of us could take some of these plants for ourselves," Mareo surmised. "It would just need to be taken care of once removed."

"I'm no botanist, but would these plants be able to survive outside of this room?" Takeshi asked. "Maybe those lamps are special lamps that make them able to photosynthesize. Y'know what I mean?"

"Perhaps," Mareo admitted. "We may have to simply try taking one out and seeing how it fares. Otherwise, I don't think we'll have much of an issue."

Naoko shrugged. "Okay. I guess there's not much else to say about this place. I'm gonna get going now."

"Cool," Takeshi replied. "I might stay a while longer. Silly as it may sound, I like this place. It has a nice feel to it."

"I can agree with that sentiment," Mareo responded, lifting up the face guard on his suit.

Naoko left the room and backtracked a bit. He remembered when he first entered the floor, there was a hallway to the left, and he wanted to see what it led to. Upon doing so, he realized that there was a door to the right side that he hadn't paid much mind to. He decided to see where it led, and inside was, yet again, a pleasant sight.

In the large, brown-walled room were shelves upon shelves of reading material. Clearly, it was meant to be some sort of library, just judging by its contents. The bookshelves were arranged interestingly, many being up against the walls, while others were sort of jutting out from them. Despite this, Naoko could see that forward and to the left from where he came in was another door, as well as the fact that there were a couple different tables with chairs that could be used to sit down, and even a decently-sized couch off to the right-hand side. It was legitimately interesting to see just how many books were stored in the room...and, in fact, someone was already there in the room, taking in its contents.

It was Hoshi, and, well, surprisingly enough, he didn't look very happy. If anything, he looked rather depressed.

"Hoshi? Is something wrong?" Naoko asked cautiously.

Hoshi looked over to him. "Oh, I'm...I'm sorry," he apologized. "I was just thinking about this place. There's just so much in here, isn't there?"

"I know, it's pretty incredible."

"It is. I should be happy, but I was just thinking that…" Hoshi took on a troubled look. "I'm sorry if this sounds silly, but...I just thought that maybe Sasa, if she were here...I thought maybe she'd like this place. She seemed to me like she was a great reader, you know?"

Naoko began to understand just what was keeping him down, and frowned sympathetically. "You really miss her, don't you?"

"Like I've said, I never got to really talk to her like I wanted to," Hoshi said. "As much as I'd like to put on a brave face...I can't just ignore the fact that she's gone, can I?"

"Of course not," Naoko replied. "Don't worry, though. I understand how you feel. I know what it's like to lose someone you really care about."

"What do you mean by that?" Hoshi asked.

"Huh?" Naoko responded.

"Oh, do you not want to talk about it?" Hoshi asked. "I'm sorry, I didn't intend to be intrusive."

"No, no, it's fine," Naoko assured him. "I was just talking about...Well, my grandfather, on my dad's side, we were really close. I actually really admired him. He died when I was thirteen, and, uh, it hit me pretty hard."

"Oh," Hoshi said simply. He looked like he was interested in Naoko's explanation, but it also didn't really make him happy. If anything, he looked to be in a worse mood.

"Did me telling you that make you uncomfortable?" Naoko asked.

"No, I wouldn't say that," Hoshi replied. "I'm very sorry to hear that. It must have been very hard on you. We've both been through a lot, it seems, but...I doubt how I feel now can compare to how you felt when you lost your grandfather."

"Well, like I said, it hit me hard," Naoko said. "And just so you're aware, this isn't the first time I've told one of you guys about this. I actually talked with Mine about it briefly. I didn't really get into it much, but she knows I, uh, was in a bad state for a while."

"When did you tell her that?"

"Around the second day, I'd say," Naoko replied.

"That was when you spoke to each other about your secrets, huh?" Hoshi surmised.

"That's right," Naoko replied.

"Are you really willing to talk about something like that freely? That sounds very personal."

"It is," Naoko agreed. "But, at the same time, we've been stuck here together for long enough that I think it'd be weird if we didn't talk about ourselves to each other."

"That's fair," Hoshi replied. "Still, I don't think I'm ready to talk about myself to that degree."

"I understand completely," Naoko assured him.

"Yes, well," Hoshi began, "this has been an interesting conversation, but...well, perhaps we should be going. You probably want to keep looking around, and I'd like to mull something over."

"If you wanna leave, I won't stop you," Naoko replied casually.

"Well, alright then. See you. Oh, and, thanks."

Hoshi took his leave through the door that Naoko saw as he came in. As he left, he looked deep in thought. Naoko couldn't blame him, considering the interaction they'd just had. It was the sort of conversation that was difficult to keep going for very long simply due to the subject matter. At least, that was how it felt to Naoko. As for Hoshi, he probably felt similarly, considering the fact that he was the one that asked to leave.

Naoko figured he'd probably have to leave, too. There were still places he needed to investigate for himself.

A/N: This segment will be continued by the end of next chapter. I know this might seem a bit unusual to stop here, but after the last scene of the chapter, it felt to me like a good stopping point. It'd be kinda weird to keep going after that rather emotional exchange. Then again, what's gonna follow that up next time could probably be considered a little bit comparable.

In any case, the map of the third floor will be revealed by the end of next chapter. (It'll be on AO3, not here.)