Do they Count as Short Stories?

We discussed my "romance" short story on Tuesday. I kept forgetting to write about it, probably because there wasn't anything very memorable about that class XP.
I got a lot of very conflicting suggestions from class. One person said the characters were great, another said they should be developed more. One said my setting was great, and another said it needed work. So on. There didn't seem to be much agreement. I only got a couple helpful comments from my teacher. Most of them were just the same stuff that I knew already.
And I think it's because all of my stupid "short stories" are based off of larger works. I do my best to "hint at a larger world." But half the students in the class think that it means everything is undeveloped, or something? The other half of the students doesn't seem bothered by it.
I could add more detail about the existing stories/worlds, but then the short story would no longer be short, and there would be a lot of boring explanation that isn't really needed for that specific piece. Plus I don't particularly want to re-write a bunch of stuff for no reason.
The obvious solution would be to not turn in anymore short stories that are based off of longer works. Except I don't have any ideas that are short enough to turn in. Plus, I'm done turning in stories for this class. Each person only does 2.

Now I'm not sure what to do with this "romance chapter" either (I don't know what else to call it... Is it even a romance?)
Dad seems the only person, or at least the only person I heard from, who seemed to read the story as I intended it to be read.
Other people thought that Fei Yen was just going along with it because she felt like she had to.
So... that's unfortunate. I hope that's something I can fix.
The beginning also needs work. Which isn't surprising, since that's where I was trying to include all of the scattered bits of info from Katani's story, in order to set up this scene. So... I could got a couple different directions with editing that.
I'm kinda torn. I kinda want to bury this story for a really long time, and just keep it in my head as the perfect scene.
But I suppose there's also the possibility of taking it on as the last chapter of Katani's story. I'm not sure what to think about that yet... It might tie up that part of the story very nicely. But it would also change the ending, in a direction that I didn't originally intend.
So who knows.
At least I don't have any other romantic stuff to write XP.
Now I can go back to working on my grad program story. I've got to fix up a few more chapters of that to read at my OTHER creative writing class.
@_@