Work Text:
"The human heart is complex," Mr. Park, their biology teacher, says. "It's only function is to pump enough blood to deliver a continuous supply of oxygen and other nutrients to the brain and the other vital organs.* The importance of its pathway, how they interact, the coordination of contraction and relaxation of the muscle are part of every beat of your heart.**"
Even without cutting one open, Namra knows the parts of the organ. She has read about it. Her mother has bought a dozen medical texts for her to study and memorize.
But more importantly, she can see hearts.
"There are two pumping systems of the heart. One receives the blood, while the other releases it to the rest of the body."
Mr. Park instructs them to cut the pig's heart. They start the incision a centimeter to the left of the coronary sinus. The muscle is thick and just so, as it is the most worked organ of the body. The students first meet the top right part of the heart.
"The right atrium receives oxygen-poor blood from the body and pumps it to the right ventricle through the tricuspid valve.*"
And then, the lower portion.
"The right ventricle pumps the oxygen-poor blood to the lungs through the pulmonary valve.*"
Next, two centimeters from the right of the sinus, they cut the thicker wall of the heart.
"The left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the left ventricle through the mitral valve.*"
And the last chamber.
"The left ventricle pumps the oxygen-rich blood through the aortic valve out to the rest of the body.*
"All of these work together to ensure that oxygen and nutrients are delivered throughout your body."
Mr. Park, bitter and old, sardonically ends the class with a sardonic joke that the heart doesn't make you love. Chocolates and flowers do not make it flutter. It doesn't move mountains or inspire poetry. It doesn’t get broken when someone hurts you. It is not romantic; it is aromantic, scientific, an organ to keep one alive and moving.
Namra agrees and echoes his sentiments. The human heart is complex. Anatomically, it is too elaborate and intricate for one to truly understand.
But she can see hearts. Beyond the muscle, beyond the valves and trunks and aorta, beyond the atrium and the ventricle, it beholds the perplexity of our humanness.
Take for example her classmates in 2-5.
Since they were children, Onjo's heart has been intertwined with Cheongsan's. They know each other so well that, if they were blindfolded and gagged and placed on opposite ends of the room, they would still find the other easily. But Onjo's heart yearns for someone else's and Cheongsan is idly hoping his cowardice heart can be brave enough to tell her his has been hers a long time ago.
(Onjo’s heart is also beautiful, in a way that touches so many other hearts and spreads warmth to those it can reach. And Cheongsan is exceedingly considerate, who puts her heart over his and affectionately looks out for everyone’s well-being.)
There is Nayeon's frozen heart, too. Nayeon desires to have a friend to talk to, to share secrets with and to enjoy her high school with. But she is also quick to temper, who clumsily passes judgment on others, who speaks without thinking, who turns people away icily, who doesn't know how to thaw her heart without hurting other people.
(Nayeon has an enduring heart, too. Who tries even when she fails, who persists despite the ache, who is continuing to grow in the face of her own winter.)
Jooyeon's heart is hypocritical. His projection of her as a snob, who acts high and mighty, who thinks she’s a cut above the rest, (“just because her mother donates to school”), is a reflection of who he is towards those whose intelligence is below his.
(But, unlike her, he is understanding and offers his skills and talents to his classmates to improve, to be better, to be equals.)
And there is Gyeongsu’s, Jimin’s, Hyoryung’s, Daesu’s, Isak’s and Woojin’s–whose binary hearts are a product of their own mechanical doing, of their family, of the beliefs and ideals set by the society. Each heart a composite of who they are as a person, consisting of many different and connected parts.
The organ-heart is complicated, but so is the human heart, maybe to a greater degree.
The organ-heart may not command the moon and the stars, it cannot be as wide and as deep as the ocean, or as vast as the open sky but the human heart can. It has the ability to express and discern multitude of emotions and ensnare unsuspecting victims, it can hurt others but it can withstand pain and heal.
In the thick of these Byzantine hearts stand Suhyeok’s. His is a simple thing. Small and boxed, whose joy is found in the happiness of other people. He finds luxury in little things (like her smile, or her small voice, or her breathy laugh), and unearths the richness of other hearts (the soulful, wistful, hopeful). He is accepting without malice and generous and patient and warm and loving without asking for anything in return.
Suhyeok shares his tiny heart and Namra, whose heart was once lost and buried underneath, gives half of heart in return.