His laugh was a bit more shaky. "I... I wish I was not who I am. I do not like not being able to tell Shinji-kun who I am too. I want him... to see who I really am. I... I hate it when he hates me... in the visions. I wish... I was... not me."
While there may be all kinds of reasons telling him would be a
terrible idea, I'm sure Kaworu is
physically capable of speaking the words to Shinji.
...though, actually, let's think about this:
Why might it be a terrible idea?
Kaworu has indicated previously that this is the kind of knowledge that gets people killed by SEELE. However:
- That requires SEELE to somehow
find out that Shinji (et al.) know that Kaworu's an Angel. If they can keep quiet about it (which may or may not be feasible), SEELE may never know that their Super-Secret Plan is more widely known than they'd like.
- Furthermore (and this is something Kaworu doesn't appear to be aware of at this time, unless Rei's told him offscreen), Shinji had a long-ish talk with Yui about who SEELE is and what their end goal is, and he's shared some (most? all?) of that with Asuka, Rei, and Misato, who's likely told Kaji. They're probably
already at the point where if SEELE found out how much they knew, they'd have them killed; what's a little more on top of that?
Perhaps more worrying for Kaworu, at least on a personal level, is the thought that Shinji might hate him. So let's consider that.
-
A&T!Shinji, at least, might not care too much
that Kaworu's an Angel, specifically. Certainly, he's had some very personal experience with the idea that what you think you know about something is wrong, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to put "there's an Angel who wishes he wasn't driven to destroy humanity" in the same category. I can easily see Shinji's considered reaction being "huh, okay". It's perhaps higher on the weirdness meter than everything else he's been dealing with, but not by a
lot.
- Far more potentially problematic might be
that Kaworu got emotionally close to him under false pretenses. I've mentioned before that I've never actually seen NGE, so I'm running off
A&T,
ACoS, and
DIRTT for most of my characterization, but it's my understanding that Shinji has significant problems with being deceived or manipulated, and Kaworu admitting that "oh, by the way, this is why I've been trying to be friends with you" is almost certainly going to hit that button pretty hard. One option might be for Kaworu to lead with "I'm actually an Angel - no, no, hear me out".
Given that, the best outcome for Kaworu might be Shinji
never finding out that Kaworu's an Angel (or at least, not until significantly after Kaworu is no longer a threat, if they're both still around); however,
never may not be an option (certainly it wasn't in the other timelines Kaworu is seeing), and if we take that off the table, coming clean
sooner is likely to go over better than
later (with the added bonus of giving Shinji more time to come to terms with the idea that he might end up having to kill his new friend).
"Anything. We both with to protect them. We will be friends and allies, Nagisa-san."
"…then can you call me Kaworu?"
Rei stared at him. She could hear the naked need and loneliness in his voice, and even more, see the odd flickers in even the chaotic strangeness of his light. "As you… yes."
He brightened. "May I call you by name as well?"
"You may call me Ayanami."
"Not-"
"Don't push it, trout."
