Processing paired end miRNA reads for use with mirdeep2?

I’m currently trying to quantify paired-end miRNA reads using mirdeep2. This tool is designed for single-end reads, so I am not too sure how to proceed from here besides just using the forward reads. Could anyone share what tool or method they used to merge reads and then use mirdeep2?

I know I can quantify my paired-end reads with individual tools rather than mirdeep2, but I would like to figure this out for future use. Thank you!