WARNING: the following contains spoilers for Love of Kill Episode 3, "Room," now streaming on Crunchyroll.
Love of Kill stars the bounty hunter Chateau and the mysterious, elite assassin known as Song Ryang-Ha, as these two professionals quickly develop an amusing but tense Mr. & Mrs. Smith dynamic early in the anime. Ryang-Ha has a keen interest in Chateau and gladly helps her with missions, but it's still not clear why he's doing this.
Chateau, as a closed-off tsundere type, doesn't want Ryang-Ha's help, but at this rate, she'll need it more than ever. One of Ryang-Ha's old enemies brings them together with a violent confrontation, and once the dust settles, Ryang-Ha pries a little deeper into Chateau's personal life. He won't get very far, though.
The newest episode of Love of Kill followed Chateau and Song Ryang-Ha after their scrape with Ryang-Ha's old enemy, and the two of them try to get along a little better. Ryang-Ha went to great lengths to look after Chateau, even if she never asked for help. Chateau showed token appreciation for it later when they returned to the city safely. Chateau also relayed the message her assailant gave to her. It warned Ryang-Ha that he's a traitor who'll get what's coming to him. Chateau didn't understand the message, nor did she know why Ryang-Ha was being targeted. Ryang-Ha also doesn't say much to explain himself, possibly for Chateau's own good.
The episode delved deeper into Ryang-Ha's recent history, revealing only tentative details about his career as a deadly assassin. At one point, he joined a company to get close to the target, Seung-Woo, and assassinate him. At the same time, Ryang-Ha had made enemies with another fellow named Hou, the same blond man who currently wants Ryang-Ha dead, and attacked Chateau to get to him. Back then, Hou resented how much Seung-Woo favored Ryang-Ha, and no doubt Hou wants revenge for Seung-Woo's assassination. What's not clear is who sent Ryang-Ha to kill Seung-Woo or why. It's also unclear how or even whether this ties into Chateau's troubled childhood and the death of her parents. It's possible that Seung-Woo had played a role in Chateau's parents' demise, however, making that assassination a personal one for Ryang-Ha if he was protecting Chateau's family.
In the present day, Ryang-Ha visited Chateau at her modest apartment, and Chateau reluctantly let him in. Notably, Chateau trusted Ryang-Ha and relies on him, even if she won't admit it, and her boss can't afford to antagonize Ryang-Ha, either. For now, Chateau resigned herself to having Ryang-Ha in her life as a self-appointed guardian, and no doubt they'll have more adventures in the near future. Even if they are unofficial business partners, though, Chateau won't let Ryang-Ha into her personal life, even when Ryang-Ha checked out a framed family photo.
Ryang-Ha spotted a young Chateau in the photo, perhaps six to eight years old, and asked if those are her parents. Chateau avoided the question, and when a middle-aged woman called to check in on Chateau as her mother, Chateau declined to answer, and let it go to voicemail. Chateau won't reveal anything meaningful to Ryang-Ha or to the audiences, suggesting that her backstory is a painful or even incriminating one, though viewers got a hint in earlier episodes. Chateau had been the sole survivor of a car accident, and it appeared to be her father who died after someone shot at him. Chateau hasn't yet revealed who shot her father and why, though it might be connected to Ryang-Ha and his associates somehow. That may explain why Ryang-Ha feels so inexplicably responsible for Chateau's well-being. If so, Chateau and Ryang-Ha will remain partners well into the future until Chateau's father is avenged.
