Please Form Pairs

by Chiren Kina

Genres: Friendship; Satire; Psychological Thrillers; Pulp Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

THE #1 JAPANESE HIT ABOUT KEEPING UP AND STAYING (BARELY) ALIVE IN A GIRL-EAT-GIRL WORLD
ARE YOU READY TO PLAY?
SQUID GAME MEETS MEAN GIRLS
1. Please form pairs
2. You cannot pair with someone twice
3. Anyone without a partner will be executed
Mishin Mizushima isn't nearly cool enough by Japanese standards. Not even her mum is a fan,
ditching her in their micro-apartment to shack up with a sugar daddy.
At school, towering alpha females move and think as a single, terrifyingly beautiful organism. The
betas know to lay low. The rest grovel at the bottom of the sparkly food chain.
But one day, a new teacher dares to question the natural order with a simple instruction - and
unleashes a gladiatorial catfight for survival.
Please Form Pairs is a candy-coated death game where every doll must play by three rules: keep
up, be liked, and stay (barely) alive in a girl-eat-girl world. Let the games begin!

Release date: August 27, 2026

Publisher: Octopus

Print pages: 272

Sample

Aria Urushibara

No day could be more depressing than when first-period gym class fell on a freezing winter morning.

Aria heaved a sigh from her corner of the classroom, where the icy air seemed to hang still, and watched as her breath turned a misty white.

As of January 2017, the high school she went to – said to be the oldest school building in all of Kyoto – wasn’t equipped with air conditioning or heating in any of the classrooms.

Right across from Yasaka Shrine, in the heart of Gion where everything else was getting dressed up for tourists, this school alone stood out, like time had frozen before the war.

Aria had seen students posting pictures of the arched front entrance, the windows and the long, warm wooden hallways on Instagram, saying how retro it was.

If she had had the choice, she would have gone to the high school by the Kamo River, the one with the modern glass-panelled building she had visited during a mock exam in middle school. Her scores, however, were below average. Applying to that public school, where the smart kids went, would have been impossible in her position. The only option left was this private school – Yasaka Girls’ High.

She pulled her gym clothes out of her X-girl tote bag – a magazine freebie – and glanced out the window.

Without her noticing it, snow had started falling. The gymnasium was bound to be even colder. Just thinking about it doubled her sense of despair. But no matter how much she hated it, gym class wasn’t going anywhere.

Steeling herself, Aria stripped off her uniform like she was ripping off a band-aid, until she was down to her underwear. She had long since lost any sense of modesty that most high schoolers had. After all, this was an all-girls’ school. Within six months of starting here, no one bothered to hide their underwear when changing, the way girls in co-ed schools would. Off to the side, one girl had even hopped up on the teacher’s desk and was dancing in her underwear like a stripper.

That girl was Urin Nekoya – the class clown, and its biggest troublemaker.

Online, she went by Urin. Last summer, she uploaded a video to YouTube, a short clip called A Boring Summer Day in the Life of a High School Girl. Just as the title promised, it was about as plain as it got. But that video blew up, and all at once, she was popular.

At first, Aria couldn’t stand her. But more than that, she felt like Urin was from a completely different planet.

Her bluish-black bob looked fake, almost like a wig. She always had powder-blue cat-ear headphones hanging around her neck and bright cobalt tights peeking out under her skirt. With a fashion sense that far out-there, there was no way Aria thought they could be friends.

And in truth, they weren’t friends – just classmates. Nothing more, nothing less.

But curiosity got the better of her. She started watching Urin’s videos, and her off-the-cuff way of talking soon became addictive. Aria found herself rooting for her – or at least, the version of her that lived on-screen. Just two days ago, during Urin’s livestream to celebrate having reached one hundred thousand subscribers, Aria even left a ‘Congrats!’ message in the comments.

‘Hey, Urin, you’re going to get cancelled if someone spreads a clip of you like that.’ Sitting at her desk in the middle of the room, Lisa Okami propped her chin on her hand and called lazily to Urin, still dancing in her underwear.

Lisa was a fan of Nicole Fujita and read Popteen religiously. She liked her eye makeup heavy, her skirt so short it was practically criminal and her hair dyed nearly blonde in clear violation of school rules. Teachers never said a word, though – probably because they had long since stopped expecting anything from a bottom-tier school like this, and partly because they were all plain scared of her. Aria was, too. Lisa was your classic gyaru, and intimidating as hell.

‘Lisa-Lisa, my life ends when I die, okay? A little scandal won’t kill my popularity. If anything, I’d love the extra clout. Actually, that’s genius! Alright, everyone – go ahead and post my beautiful boobs!’ Urin shouted to the room, squeezing together her snow-white chest.

‘… You really are hopeless. And stop calling me Lisa-Lisa. It’s so lame.’

Even as Lisa let out a sigh, she still snapped a picture on her phone, grinning at the ridiculous gravure poses Urin was striking.

Aria couldn’t help but wonder what made people like them so different from her. Looking at Urin’s porcelain skin, or the curves Lisa couldn’t hide even under her gym clothes, the question gnawed at her.

Maybe it was genetics, maybe their upbringing. Whatever the reason, these so-called Alpha Girls had a certain sparkle. Just being spoken to by them was enough to make you shrink back in awe.

Compared to that, Aria had no aura whatsoever. Her skin was disappointingly healthy-looking, her chest was flat and she had just enough extra fat around her stomach to make her rush into her gym clothes, trying to cover it up.

‘Oh, hey, Sarasa! Morning!’ Urin, still in her underwear, waved at the girl entering the room from atop the teacher’s desk.

Sarasa, of course, was another Alpha Girl.

‘Um … What are you doing this early in the morning?’ Sarasa Hoshikawa, starry-eyed but trying to play it off as exasperated, looked up at Urin.

‘Urin’s strip show!’

‘… Right. Just get changed already. You’ll catch a cold.’

‘Idiots and geniuses don’t get sick!’

‘Which one are you supposed to be?’

Sarasa’s perfectly tied ponytail swayed from side to side as she let out a bell-like laugh.

Aria pictured herself with the same hairstyle and cringed – it would definitely look bad on her. But on Sarasa, the very picture of purity, it was perfect.

Her eyes weren’t huge, her nose wasn’t sharp, her lips weren’t full – and yet, if anyone asked, ‘Who’s the cutest in class?’ every single one of them would answer Sarasa. Her beauty wasn’t a copy of someone else’s style, or something she forced by standing out. It was hers, and hers alone.

‘Good morning, Aria,’ Sarasa said, setting her bag on her desk.

Since the last seat shuffle had put them next to each other, she had greeted Aria like this every morning. Aria knew it didn’t mean anything special, but that didn’t stop it from lifting her mood ever so slightly.

‘Morning. It’s freezing today.’

‘Yeah, it’s so cold!’

‘Hey, is that Burberry?’ Aria asked, pointing at the beige-and-red check scarf Sarasa had just taken off.

‘Yep. It used to be my sister’s. She gave it to me.’

‘Wow, it’s so cute.’

‘Thanks!’

Making an effort to keep her voice light and cheery, Aria felt – just for a second – that maybe she could be an Alpha Girl, too.

Sarasa wasn’t as untouchable as Urin or Lisa, but still, Aria didn’t want to push too close to her. She knew she wasn’t fit to be real friends with her – and maybe, deep down, she accepted that. Chatting like this every now and then was enough for her.

Besides, she already had a best friend for life.

As long as that person was by her side, Aria could stand being hated by everyone else.

‘Oh, Lara!’

No sooner did Sarasa take her seat than she lit up like a puppy spotting its owner and dashed toward the door. Coming in just before the bell was Lara Kagahi.

‘Morning, Lara! Look at you, not late for once!’

That was the tone of voice Aria had wanted to hear – different from the one Sarasa had used with her.

‘It was so cold I woke up early,’ Lara yawned.

‘Looking cool as always, Lara.’

‘Even with the bedhead …’

A nearby student’s comment left Aria nodding silently to herself.

Aria was definitely straight – she wanted a boyfriend as soon as possible – but she couldn’t help but harbour a secret admiration for Lara. In fact, most girls at the school probably wanted to be noticed by her.

Because Lara was the school’s prince.

She was tall – a hundred and seventy-five centimetres – and possessed sharp, androgynous features that made you forget she was a girl. She was already the ace of the basketball team, despite being a first-year. Normally, someone like that would get on the older students’ nerves, but they adored her. During breaks, girls from other classes would literally show up calling out to her, screaming with excitement.

There was no way Aria could muster the guts to talk to her. A Beta Girl like her had no right to hog Lara’s attention.

‘Even if you’re early, you’re still barely on time. Anyway, hurry up and get changed – we have gym.’

‘What, gym first period? Ugh … Sarasa, let’s skip.’

‘No way. You’ve already missed too many first periods. You’ll fail.’

‘… True.’

Aria looked away and stood up. It wasn’t jealousy. She wasn’t really in love with her. Lara was just too dazzling to keep looking at for long – like staring straight into the sun from the bottom of a pool.

Needless to say, Lara was also an Alpha Girl.

In this class, the top tier was made up Urin, Lisa, Sarasa and Lara.

Within a month of starting first year, everyone knew where they stood in the classroom hierarchy.

At the very top were the Alpha Girls – the few per cent who stood out, whether because they were pretty, brilliant at talking to people or just shone brighter than everyone else.

Then came the Beta Girls, the majority – too varied to lump under ordinary, but not exceptional, either.

Then, at the bottom, were the Groundlings – the ones considered unattractive, or else too strange to fit in.

Three broad layers, more or less.

Aria, average-looking and without any special talents, sat in the middle of the middle. She admired the top girls, of course, but she was oddly content where she was.

She wasn’t glamorous like the Alpha Girls, but she wasn’t stuck in the shadows like the Groundlings, either. She was just an average high schooler.

Besides, in all the stories popular among girls, the heroine was always just an ordinary girl.

And so, deep down, Aria believed that if some fateful event were to ever descend upon her classroom, it wouldn’t come to any of them. It would come to her.

‘Hey, Noa, are you ready? Let’s go.’

Getting up from her seat, Aria called out to Noa Ichinose, like she always did. Unlike Aria’s aisle seat by the hall, Noa’s caught the sunlight by the window, something Aria couldn’t help but envy.

‘Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go.’

With a soft smile, Noa rose to her feet. She was Aria’s best friend for life.

Naturally, Noa was a Beta Girl as well.

Maybe it was different at other schools, but here, best friends almost never crossed ranks. Which meant Noa was the same level as her – just another ordinary girl.

Still, Aria thought that if this school were co-ed, Noa would definitely get more attention from boys. Even Aria found her gentle aura soothing. There was something about her – a warm, enveloping presence – that left you feeling safe and secure.

‘Cold today, huh?’

‘Yeah, freezing.’

The icy January hallway felt like a march to the gallows.

Aria looped her arm through Noa’s to fight off the chill.

The two of them had been together since elementary school. Living in the same neighbourhood meant walking to and from school together, and soon, they were hanging out at each other’s houses after class. Noa’s mum treated them like sisters, and every summer, her outdoorsy dad would take them camping.

In the forest, with the cries of animals echoing around them, the two of them would lie side by side in sleeping bags inside the tiny tent they pitched together. In those moments, Aria felt like she and Noa were the closest of sisters.

‘What are we doing in gym today?’ Aria asked, leaning into Noa for warmth.

‘I think it’s basketball.’

‘Basketball, huh? I guess Lara will be showing off again.’

‘For sure.’

Noa’s Kyoto accent stretched out her words, turning her response into something like Fawr shooore. Lately, Aria felt like she had picked up a bit of it herself.

‘We’re lucky to be in the same class as her, huh?’

‘For real.’

‘Ah, I wish I had a boyfriend like her.’

‘You’ll have one soon, Aria.’

‘You think so? But this is an all-girls’ school. There aren’t any guys around. It’s hopeless.’

‘Hopeless? You’re so dramatic.’

Noa could laugh at the dumbest of things, which was why Aria always found herself more talkative whenever she was with her. Thanks to her presence, Aria felt like she could be the school’s heroine despite her status as a Beta Girl.

‘Alright, let’s get started. Three laps around the gym,’ called Norio Akiyama, their gym teacher, his half-hearted instructions echoing through the freezing gymnasium.

Shivering, Aria and the others began to run.

‘God, Akiyama’s so gross.’

‘Right? I’d kill myself if he ever became my homeroom teacher.’

‘At least we have someone else. She’s kind of gloomy, but she doesn’t nag much.’

‘You mean Osuzu? She’s probably just nervous because she’s new.’

Even when she tried not to, Aria couldn’t help but overhear Lisa and Urin griping as they ran ahead.

At a girls’ school, male teachers – even old grandpas – were usually fawned over, but no one liked Akiyama.

Aria didn’t, either. It wasn’t like he had done anything to her personally, but there was nothing to like. The thick hair covering the backs of his hands, his clammy, greasy-looking skin – it was revolting.

‘Alright, next, some warm-up stretches. Pair up however you want.’

No sooner had they finished running than he barked the next order, not even giving them a moment to catch their breath.

Behind her, Aria heard Lisa click her tongue. Akiyama’s half-assed attitude and the way he treated students so carelessly were a big part of why everyone hated him.

‘Let’s pair up, Noa,’ Aria said, reaching for her friend’s hand.

‘Yeah,’ Noa answered, taking it without hesitation.

All around them, pairs were forming fast. Of course, everyone already knew who they would partner with before the order was given.

‘You’re left over again, Mizushima? Guess it’s you and me today.’

Akiyama’s tone – thoughtless and cruel – was probably half the reason he was so despised.

Mishin Mizushima nodded back in silence.

Having to pair up with Akiyama must have been hell.

Aria felt sorry for Mishin, but still, she turned her gaze away.

It was the same every time Akiyama gave that order. There were twenty-seven girls in the class, so one person was always left out – and no one was ever willing to step forward and pair with Mizushima, a ghostly Groundling sunk to the very bottom of the class.

Without thinking, Aria squeezed Noa’s hand tighter.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Your hand’s really warm.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ she nodded, scanning the others out of the corner of her eye.

She was sure that, deep down, every girl here felt relieved – not that they would ever admit it. Thanks to Mizushima, they themselves were never the odd one out.

‘Hey Noa, let’s stay best friends forever, okay?’

Flashing her a smile, Aria tried to imagine who she would pair up with if she didn’t have Noa. What if no one else offered to hold out a hand? What if she had to end up with Akiyama, like Mizushima? The thought was terrifying.

That was no exaggeration – Aria would rather die than end up isolated like that. At least, as long as she was still at high school.

Mishin Mizushima

Eight months into Mishin’s second year of high school, around the end of autumn, a survey was handed out to everyone in class.

Survey on Bullying

This survey is being conducted so that all students can enjoy a positive, enriching school life. Your answers here will not be made public, and you don’t have to write your name if you don’t want to.

1. Do you feel that bullying is taking place at this school?

Yes / No

2. Do you feel that you are being bullied right now?

Yes / No

3. If you answered ‘Yes’, what form does the bullying take?

_________________________________________________

4. Do you feel that you are bullying someone right now, or that you have bullied someone in the past?

Yes / No

5. If you answered ‘Yes’, what form does the bullying take?

_________________________________________________

6. What are your thoughts on bullying?

_________________________________________________

7. What do you think could be done to eliminate bullying?

_________________________________________________

‘As you all know, two months ago, a student at an all-girls’ high school in Tokyo tragically lost her life because of bullying over social media,’ Asami Suzuta, their homeroom teacher again this year, said in her usual flat, unreadable tone. ‘I can’t help but feel deeply saddened every time I see the news. The survey I’ve just handed you is being conducted nationwide with the aim of eliminating bullying. As it says, you don’t have to write your name . . .