Is using a hyperlink to close a modal a poor design decision?

So I'm having a bit of back and forth with our UX designer who I defer to given his superior knowledge of the field. However, part of his design does not sit well with me and I'm unable to swallow it, so I'm seeking opinions from brighter minds than myself.

In essence, we have a sidebar modal appear when a certain button is clicked, this sidebar contains various fields the user can enter text into. When the sidebar is activated, the background is greyed out and clicking anywhere results in no action. At the bottom of this modal, there is a 'Cancel and close' hyperlink, when clicked, the modal will disappear and not retain any information.

The fact this 'Cancel and close' is a hyperlink doesn't sit well with me, to me, a hyperlink means I will be taken somewhere. A button feels more appropriate in this case as I will be returning to my original context. However, as mentioned, I'm perhaps completely outdated in my opinions.

Additional Info

I have something similar to this in my head - https://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/tryit.asp?filename=trybs_ref_js_modal_js&stacked=h

Basically trade that 'Close' button for 'Close' hyperlink and you've the same situation, though that example lends itself better to my opinion given how it looks.

@Ren called it out perfectly, it has been made low key to keep the user on the modal. It hasn't been coded correctly as a button but I can understand why it's styled how it is now and it seems this is a common pattern used. To me, I thought this violated basic fundamentals and seems I was wrong. Thank you for educating me!