12 Days - Plot

Plot

For the first eight chapters, 12 Days centers on Jackie Yuen, a 29-year-old part Cantonese and part Korean editor. After the death of her former lover, the Korean American school nurse Noah Yoon, she decides to drink her ashes over twelve days in beverages as a way of coping with her grief. Nicholas "Nick" Yoon, Noah's younger half brother, steals some of Noah's ashes for her to use, and soon joins her in mourning. She reminisces on how she met her and became involved in a lesbian relationship; however, Noah ended their relationship to marry a man to appease her father, and died returning from her honeymoon in a car accident a month ago. As Jackie continues her ritual, she begins to feel ill and eventually faints. Nick takes her to the hospital, where she recovers. On New Year's Day, she parts from Nick and returns to her apartment to find that he has taken the engagement ring she had wanted to give Noah, and unknown to her, he mixes it in with the remaining ashes. 12 Days concludes with "Chapter 0", set before the events in the rest of the comic: Noah finds Nick studying for exams, and they briefly discuss Artemisia II of Caria, an ancient Greek queen who drank the ashes of her husband. Noah then hints that she has found someone whose ashes she would drink.