This must be what hell on Earth is like.

Sitting on the floor of Roach's spare room while the man himself carefully picks out a specimen from his collection, as god knows how many bugs inhabit the carefully put-together enclosures on the walls.

It's not that you don't trust Roach; if you didn't, you wouldn't be here, taking him up on his offer to help you get over your fear of bugs, cockroaches specifically.

"Um... Okay!" Roach turns around, holding a piece of styrofoam with a dead cockroach pinned to it. "This is Papa, he's a European cockroach, otherwise known as a German roach!" There's no denying the excitement in his voice. "He's the dad of most of my other roaches, and he's on the larger side. His species doesn't get to be much bigger than half an inch, so he's small enough to hopefully not freak you out too much while being big enough that you can see all his cool parts!"

Papa the roach. You'd giggle at the obvious pun name if you didn't feel so lightheaded.

"Y'see those markings on his elytra? The two little darker brown lines? Aren't they cute? This species actually doesn't fly unless absolutely necessary!" Roach looks so happy as he holds the roach out for you to take. "I thought it'd be better to get you used to dead roaches before I try making you hold a live one."

That's sweet of him, trying to make sure he doesn't push you too hard. It's too bad that you're already on the verge of tears at the mere sight of the pinned cockroach, and the mention that he's going to make you hold a live one is not helping.

He seems to pick up on the sheer terror radiating off of you and places Papa the roach carefully to the side. "You look more scared than you did before, you know cockroaches are harmless, right? They're also really clean, and are super smart!" Roach sits back on his haunches, a slight frown visible behind his goggles, "okay, that didn't help either. What even made you so scared of roaches in the first place? I think they're cute."